Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Mike Mullen said the service will not seek additional funding in FY '07 to being building two submarines a year in FY '09.

"I said FY '12 for a specific reason. It's what I think we can do," Mullen told reporters during a briefing yesterday. "It's not part of the plan."

Building an additional submarine in FY '09 would severely impact resources to the tune of approximately $7 billion to $8 billion that would either have to be added to that account or come from somewhere else, Mullen said. "I don't have those resources available."

Mullen met with reporters just after delivering the Navy's much-anticipated long range construction plan to Congress. The plan calls for increasing the service's shipbuilding budget from $8.6 billion for new construction in FY '07 to more than $13 billion in FY '08 with a gradual increase over the Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP).

He said the Navy would have to reach $13 billion for new ship construction in the FYDP.

"We need to get above [$9 billion to $10 billion] that's been a fairly consistent number over time. $13 billion is in the program now. The question is, can I hold it in. I am in the position to hold it in more than we have in the past," he said.

Another issue sure to raise the ire of Congress is the Navy's plan to retire the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67). Lawmakers added language to the FY '06 defense budget prohibiting retiring of the Kennedy. Still, the Navy is pursuing the ship's retirement.

"I'd like that to happen as soon as possible," Mullen said.

Mullen said the Navy can get the job done with 11 carriers.

"The proposal in the budget is to decommission her," he said. "I looked at this very carefully when I took this job over."

There is some risk associated with retiring the Kennedy but Mullen said it is manageable.

"There are considerable investments that must be made to keep her around and I have 2,000 sailors in an uncertain future," he added. "I'd like to move ahead and get her off the books as soon as possible."

313- Ship Plan Sent To Congress

By Christopher Cavas, Defense News, 8 FEB 06

The long-awaited 30-year shipbuilding plan of Adm. Mike Mullen, U.S. Navy chief of operations, is now official. The strategy to build a 313-ship fleet was sent to Congress Feb. 7 after having been endorsed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The official plan mirrors earlier draft versions that were reported on by Defense News. It commits the Navy to a force of 11 aircraft carriers — dropping to 10 in fiscal 2013 and rising to 12 ships beginning in 2019. The submarine force dances around a median of 48 boats, from a high of 55 subs in 2018 to a low of 40 in 2028, before rising to 51 boats in 2036.

The plan also provides for 55 Littoral Combat Ships, a figure planned to be attained in 2018.

The size of the fleet has bottomed out at today’s 281 ships. Overall figures rise to 285 ships in 2007 and show steady growth to 2013 and 317 ships. After a dip of a few years, the fleet number rises again, hitting 330 in 2018. The numbers fall into the 290s beginning in 2029 as older ships are retired — replaced, according to the Navy, with fewer but more capable warships.

“We need to stop getting smaller,” Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon Feb. 7.

Mullen was upbeat as he discussed the plan, having put off for months discussing specific numbers while the plan was in draft form.

“My biggest challenge is to build a fleet for the future,” he said, and repeatedly expressed confidence the plan could meet its cost and capability goals. “The goal is to have a plan which is stable and industry can build to,” he said.

He noted the effect of a cost-reduction effort on the controversial DD(X) destroyer design that has cut $300 million from the Navy’s estimated $3.3 billion cost for the first ships. “That’s over a billion [saved] over the [seven-ship] class,” he said.

Although Mullen said the shipbuilding plan “is not perfect in its precision,” he said an average of $13.5 billion a year will be needed to sustain it through 2020, an average of about $4 billion more than the Navy has gotten over recent years.

“I’ve got to invest the resources to stabilize the plan,” he said.

Having spent much of his seven months in office focusing on shipbuilding and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), Mullen said he would begin looking at the aviation side of the Navy’s planning efforts. “That’s what we’ll do for the ’08 budget,” he said.

Decommissioning the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy also is a priority, Mullen said, noting that Congress last year mandated the ship remain in service until the QDR is complete — a milestone reached Feb. 3 when the plan was sent to Capitol Hill.

“We can get the job done with 11 carriers,” Mullen said. The ship and its more than 2,000 sailors have been in limbo since late December 2004, when the Navy told legislators it planned to decommission the ship rather than spend more than $200 million to overhaul it.

“I would like that to happen as soon as possible,” Mullen said about taking the ship out of service.

Mullen: 313-Vessels Fleet Means $13.5 Billion A Year

CNO Says Shipbuilders Must Curb Costs

Dave Ahearn, Defense Today, 8 Feb 06

A plan to increase the current 281-ships fleet to 313 vessels in coming years, authored by Adm. Michael Mullen, the chief of naval operations, implies increasing the shipbuilding budget to a $13.5 billion annual average, he said.

"I don't consider it [$13.5 billion] a reach," Mullen said, even though it exceeds the justreleased roughly $11 billion (or $9.7 million in new funds) Navy shipbuilding budget request for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007. (Please see Defense Today Instant Update, Monday, Feb. 6, 2006, 7:57 p.m.) Mullen just delivered the 313-vessels future fleet plan to Congress, where lawmakers last year refused to approve a Navy request for funding only four new ships and submarines, and instead funded seven vessels.

Warning To Contractors Mullen also called on warship builders to further modernize their yards, so that costs of ships decline and the 313-ship plan remains affordable.

While both General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman Corp. have taken steps to modernize their shipyards, Mullen said more work is required. "The yards have to start investing," he said. One lawmaker has noted that some shipyards abroad, including some in Scandinavian nations, are far more automated than those in the United States.

General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, working together to design the future DD(X) destroyer, are determined to cut costs, a General Dynamics spokesman said. "Both shipyards are working together to drive costs out of the ships," so as to help the Navy realize its goal of building 313 ships.

And the contractors are pressing subcontractors and suppliers to slash costs of ship components, so as to produce "affordable, capable ships," the spokesman said.

The goal for the two shipbuilding firms is "to get the fifth DD(X) down to $2.3 billion, or below," the spokesman said. Some members of Congress have complained that the first DD(X) has been estimated to cost $3.3 billion, including development costs.

There must be a three-way partnership involving the Navy, Congress and industry to drive shipbuilding costs lower, Mullen said.

Referring to the long downward slide in the fleet size that approached 600 vessels in the 1980s, Mullen said controlling costs on ships is critical. "If we don't control the costs, I won't be able to turn it up" to a growing fleet, he said.

Because Mullen sees no great savings coming from other segments of the Navy budget such as long-soaring personnel costs, and he also doesn't see the total Navy budget increasing greatly, then cost savings must be found in some Navy procurement programs to pay for other acquisition efforts, he indicated.

His comments came as Ronald Sugar, top officer of the largest Navy shipbuilder, Northrop Grumman Corp., said he expects the Navy to clamp down on costs of the next-generation DD(X) destroyer. (Please see full story elsewhere in this issue.) Mullen spoke to several defense journalists at a Pentagon round-table on the same day that several key senators called for a further increase in overall defense spending.

Mullen rejected assessments by some analysts that his 313-vessels plan may not be affordable, and that not all of its figures agree with each other.

The future fleet plan can be realized, he said, and must be in order to stem and reverse a downward trajectory in the number of ships and submarines.

He indicated the four-ships Navy budget request a year ago, for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2006, would have sent the fleet size on a trajectory plummeting to far less than 260 craft, the bottom end of an earlier future fleet plan for 260 to 325 ships and subs that his 313- fleet-strength plan replaces.

Some critics at the time said the four-ships Navy request implied an eventual fleet size of less than 200 craft.

But Mullen said that reversing the slide in the fleet size, and increasing the number of ships and boats, will have to be financed from cost cuts within the Navy procurement area, such as limiting prices on ships and components. (Her did, however, hint that perhaps some spare funds might be found in Navy aircraft procurement programs. "I wouldn't use the term `rob' them," he said.) "I don't anticipate a lot more money in the top line" of the Navy budget, or the procurement portion of the budget, Mullen said.

Senators: Bolster Defense Funds

But some lawmakers say there is an unavoidable need to increase defense spending.

Analysts have noted that the Department of Defense (DOD) is enmeshed in a long war in Afghanistan and Iraq that shows no signs of halting immediately. As well, DOD faces soaring personnel costs that at times have devoured a majority of the total defense budget, along with predictable increases in outlays for procurement programs as weapons platforms already under contract move from lower-cost design and development into much higher-cost production.

During a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee where Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was the lead witness, one Democrat said at least some parts of DOD are underfunded.

"We are at war," Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), said. "People are trying to kill us." He added that "my gripe is not" that the defense budget has shot up from less than $300 billion to more than $500 billion annually in five years, but rather that Congress isn't sufficiently funding some parts of the defense budget.

More money is required to meet new threats posed by irregular warfare, such as the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and terrorist threats, Lieberman indicated.

At the same time, a "status-quo increase" in procurement programs "puts us in an untenable position in years ahead," as costs of many acquisition programs soar with the onset of full rate production of hardware, he pointed out.

"We're not going to be able to afford the budget that you put before us" without increasing the total amount, or top line, of the defense budget, Lieberman said to Rumsfeld.

But Rumsfeld indicated he isn't so alarmed by the impending crunch in defense funding requirements, noting that critics over the years at times have said the DOD was facing a bow wave of immense spending needs.

"Every bow wave has always been manageable," Rumsfeld said.

Speaking to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Rumsfeld said that defense spending has consumed as much as 10 percent of the total U.S. output of goods and services during the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations, while defense spending currently consumes little more than a third of that level.

"This country is perfectly capable of spending whatever we need" for national defense, Rumsfeld said.

Inhofe said it may be time to re-examine what is needed to fund defense requirements adequately.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said it is time for DOD to stop funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with supplemental budgets, saying the money should be provided with oversight in the regular DOD money bills.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), said the $439.3 billion regular DOD budget request for fiscal 2007, not counting war supplemental appropriations, was "mind-boggling," contrasting that amount with the Army demanding that a soldier wounded in the war pay DOD $700 because the body armor he wore when he was wounded was destroyed in the incident.

Navy Sets Shipbuilding Goals Requiring Big Funding Boost

govexec.com, 09 FEB 06

The Navy sent Congress an extremely ambitious 30-year shipbuilding plan Tuesday that would reverse the decline in the fleet and build it up from the current 285 ships to 315 in five years and sustain it above that number for more than a decade.

But to make that plan work, the Navy must get its annual ship construction funding up from the proposed fiscal 2007 level of $9.7 billion to $13.5 billion in two years, keep it at that level or higher for decades and get the average cost of its ships down substantially.

"Clearly, my goal is to have a plan that is stable, that the industry can build to," Adm. Michael Mullen, the chief of naval operations, said at a Pentagon briefing. And, he added, "I have a cost-reduction requirement. I intend to take cost out of all our ships."

The plan was welcomed by the president of the American Shipbuilding Association, Cynthia Brown, as "a good start from where we are today, to turn things around. The Navy recognizes its requirements for naval ships is much larger than the fleet it has today or will have" under previous plans.

But a number of naval analysts have warned that getting the higher amount of shipbuilding funds that the plan requires and getting a lower cost of ships would be very difficult.

The plan was required by the Armed Services committees, whose members have complained repeatedly over the years of the rapid drop in the size of the combat fleet, from the high of nearly 600 in the early 1990s. The current fleet is the Navy's smallest since just before World War I.

Although Mullen said the optimum size of the fleet is 313 ships, the long-range plan shows a quick growth to 315 in fiscal 2012 and to 330 six years later. The fleet then would begin to shrink again, dropping below 300 by 2020.

But future defense plans are notoriously unreliable, even when looking ahead several years, let alone three decades.

Mullen said the shipbuilding plan was endorsed in the recently released Quadrennial Defense Review and is supported by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

To maintain the buildup would require an average annual ship construction account of $13.5 billion over the decades, he said. "I don't think that is out of reach."

Mullen conceded, however, that he did not expect the total Navy budget to grow substantially, meaning he would have to find the additional ship funds elsewhere in the service's funding.

The plan sets out the optimum fleet force structure as 11 aircraft carriers, 88 large surface combatants -- destroyers and cruisers -- 55 of the relatively small Littoral Combat Ships, 48 attack submarines, 14 ballistic missile submarines, four of the missile boats converted to carry conventional missiles and special operations troops, 31 "expeditionary" vessels, 30 combat logistic ships, 12 Maritime Preposition Force (Future) ships and 20 support vessels.

But the plan shows that force rising above those numbers in some classes and falling below in others. The attack submarine force, for example, falls to 40 near the end of the plan.

Brown said one of her disappointments in the plan is the failure to build more than one submarine a year before 2012, which would make it difficult to meet Mullen's goal of cutting the $2 billion cost of the subs by one third.

Navy's Mullen Wants To Surge U.S. Shipbuilding In Fiscal 2008

Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg, 7 Feb 06

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Navy wants to add almost $5 billion to its budget for shipbuilding in fiscal 2008, an increase of about 59 percent over its request for $8.5 billion in fiscal 2007, the Chief of Naval Operations said today.

The Navy wants to build seven more ships in fiscal 2008 and make the first payments on Northrop Grumman Corp.'s new CVN-21 aircraft carriers, Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters. The annual shipbuilding budget would increase in fiscal 2008 by $4.95 billion to $13.4 billion, and it would reach $17.2 billion in 2011 to pay for 14 vessels that year, he said.

The spending request supports Mullen's plan to increase the fleet to 313 vessels by 2020, up from about 285 today. The funding isn't specified in the Bush administration's longrange spending plan that was released yesterday with the fiscal 2007 budget, and Navy officials didn't mention it when briefing reporters on the budget.

If ultimately approved by Congress, the added funding would be good news for Northrop Grumman, the nation's top warship maker, General Dynamics Corp., the No. 2 ship maker and Lockheed Martin Corp., which is designing along with General Dynamics a new class of light warships for coastal warfare.

Mullen, in a session with reporters, acknowledged that the Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Service question whether the Navy can greatly increase shipbuilding rates. Still, he said, "I don't think it's out of reach." Mullen said the goal can't be reached unless the Navy and contractors do a better job of controlling costs -- a concern that led Congress to impose cost caps on later versions of the new DD(X) destroyer in the fiscal 2006 defense budget.

"If we don't control the costs I won't be able to turn it up," Mullen said of ship construction rates.

Review: Pacific Needs Greater Navy Presence

Hawaii, Guam Still Vying For Home Port Rights For Added Carrier

By Jennifer H. Svan, Stars And Stripes, 9 Feb 06

The Pentagon, in its strategic Quadrennial Defense Review, supports an increased Navy presence in the Pacific. But the report, released Friday, gives few details on how this vision might take shape, keeping the Guam-vs.-Hawaii aircraft carrier debate still very much on the table, officials say.

“All indications are that the possibility of home-porting a carrier on Guam or Hawaii continues to be under evaluation but that strategic reviews and decision-making processes remain,” according to a written statement from Madeleine Bordallo, Guam’s nonvoting congressional delegate.

The Pentagon has indicated, she said, that the decision would not be made until after release and evaluation of the Quadrennial Defense Review. In the meantime, Bordallo said, she continues to promote Guam, calling the Pacific island’s greatest advantage “our closer proximity to potential trouble spots in Asia.”

Across the Pacific, Hawaii U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye likewise is campaigning in promotion of his territory. In a statement, he said he remains committed to bringing a carrier to his home state: “The United States faces many challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, and I remain convinced that having a carrier based in Hawaii will be crucial for our national security.”

The Pentagon in its strategy review singles out China as the greatest military threat to the United States among major and emerging powers.

One disadvantage to moving a flattop to Apra Harbor is initial infrastructure needs: It’s been reported that the estimated cost of basing an aircraft carrier on Guam is $5 billion, compared to $2.2 billion for Hawaii.

But Bordallo countered, “While the costs for infrastructure improvements to our port to accommodate a carrier may be higher for Guam, there are other areas where Guam is more competitive, such as the cost of off-base housing and the overall lower cost of living for sailors.”

The Pentagon report offers no details about carrier basing, noting only that the Navy plans to have “at least six operationally available and sustainable carriers” in the region. The Navy currently bases five aircraft carriers in the Pacific: two in San Diego, two in Washington state and one in Japan.

The Quadrennial Defense Review also says that 60 percent of U.S. submarines will operate in the Pacific, but it does not outline how that balance will be achieved.

“No decisions to homeport more than three submarines on Guam have been made,”

Bordallo stated. The review also does not cover whether current Atlantic-based warships will be assigned to new ports in the Pacific.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Announced PRC goal: Triple the U.S. submarine fleet in 20 years

Excerpt from Essay “Will China Rules the Waves?”

By Joe Buff, Submarine Review, January 2006

If we look ahead to the 2020s, as we must, the U.S. Navy will then have about 60 SSNs, SSGNs, and SSBNs in commission, while China’s “New Fleet” will have maybe 150 or 180. Those Chinese submarines will be a good mix of foreign-bought and home-grown diesel subs, nuclear-powered fast attacks, and “boomers.” This New Fleet is nothing to trifle with: The men will be well trained and the equipment will be good enough for China’s purposes. (The two recent accidents aboard aging MING-class diesel boats can be dismissed as part of China’s increasingly irrelevant “Old Fleet.”) China is already buying Improved KILOs from Russia, and some reports indicate the latest version is coming with air-independent propulsion. (Able to stay far below the surface for many days or weeks at a time, diesel/AIP subs represent a whole new spectrum of threat, and have been called by some “the poor man’s nuclear submarine.”)

Right now alone, China has 18 submarines under construction, half of these in Russia and half at home. In contrast, the U.S. recently went through a “drought” in which not one new submarine was put into commission for six or seven years. At the moment, we’re building VRGINIA-class SSNs at the paltry rate of one per year at least until 2012, and four OHIO-class SSBN-to-SSGN conversions are gradually being completed –- and that’s it.

China is arming her submarines with a variety of sophisticated weapons, including excellent sub-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, some of which are supersonic -– and hence very difficult to defend against. These modern weapons also include the Russian Shkval supercavitating rocket-torpedo, capable of speeds of 200 or 300 knots underwater. American submariners say that they personally don’t see these things as much of a threat, at least if they aren’t tipped with an H-bomb warhead. But a Shkval moves so fast in a straight line that against a deep-draft surface target (think of an American aircraft carrier) it doesn’t need homing sensors or even any warhead at all. The sheer kinetic energy of the rocket-torpedo platform is bound to smash through the hull below the waterline, so long as the Chinese sub gets reasonably close and has a half-way decent firing solution. Some hits from a salvo of Shkvals would put even a CVN-21 next-generation supercarrier out of action for the duration. If the Chinese sub is destroyed in return, Beijing achieved quite a bargain. If twenty Chinese subs are destroyed in return for each supercarrier mauled with heavy casualties, or each American SSN sunk, Beijing will still see themselves as having come out on top in the contest. And so will their submariners, even the ones who know they’re about to get killed. In the First World War, 50% of German submariners were lost in action. Between the wars, this fact was generally known. Even so, in the Second World War, German sailors lined up in droves to volunteer for U-boat service. As the war progressed and their terrible 80% loss rate began to be impossible to hide from men on the waterfront, sailors never flinched from vying for a place in one of the U-boat crews. We can expect exactly this sort of courage and heroism from Chinese submariners.

Traditionalists view a navy that emphasizes submarines as inherently inferior/defensive, and one that emphasizes aircraft carriers as inherently superior/offensive. I’d argue that this distinction is becoming blurred to the point of maybe no longer applying. One reason is that ongoing advances in acoustic and non-acoustic submarine stealth, improved sensor and communications capabilities, increasing weapons payload capacity, and versatility of adjuvant vehicle mission profiles, render the latest SSNs and SSGNs more and more closely analogous to underwater CVNs. A balanced navy is always best, but “balanced” means different things to different nations. National policy and strategic goals must enter the equation. It should be clear by now that China doesn’t see a lot of things the same way that most Americans do -– including the level of tolerance for heavy combat casualties. I’d furthermore argue that almost every major naval war in known history was in some important ways asymmetric. We can’t measure China by our own standards, or we might make fatal, irreversible miscalculations.

Intelligence and counter-intelligence will also continue to play key roles as America’s and China’s navies change and grow. For instance, one embarrassment for the U.S. intelligence community was to completely miss a new PLAN diesel sub, the YUAN-class, until the first ship’s existence was announced by Beijing. Some commentators disparage this vessel as “noisier than a steam locomotive,” but that misses some much bigger points. Western analysts were also surprised by how quickly the first new 094-class SSBN followed the introduction of the PLAN’s 093-class SSN. Chinese designers want to learn everything they can, as fast as they can, and they’re willing to take risks and buy or steal what they can’t yet manage themselves. We have to assume, for instance, that all of the information the Walker spy ring sold to Moscow has been passed on to Beijing, for an appropriate fee, thus helping jump-start a new submarine arms race. What then will America do if China buys from Russia not just Improved KILOs with AIP, but also some of their superb AKULA-IIs (a very dangerous adversary for a LOS ANGELES-class boat), or even some of Moscow’s next-generation SEVERODVINSK-class SSNs or BOREY-class SSBNs?

China has her own outstanding espionage apparatus at work within the U.S. The recently-arrested alleged Chi Mak spy-ring foursome is a case in point. Purported to have been in operation since 1990, it’s been said that they sold China some of the most sensitive design secrets and acoustic profile data on the new VIRGINIA-class SSN, compromising that class’s safety in any hostile waters. Other reports, possibly exaggerated, state that they or other Chinese spies also provided Beijing with full specifications of the Aegis integrated air-defense system, and China’s first Aegis-clone cruiser was recently detected at sea. On another recent occasion, Chinese agents were interdicted at the last minute while attempting to buy special electronics that would have let Beijing listen to the decoded downlinks from American spy satellites. This would have given China several invaluable prizes for free: unlimited access to a working constellation of the best spy satellites in existence, keen insights into what things the U.S. was most interested in spying on, and intelligence on how best to disguise their own secret activities from prying American eyes.

I put it to all of you in the audience today that these constant, widespread, relentless, shameless espionage efforts by the People’s Republic yield further clues as to their ultimate naval intentions: Those intentions are neither benign nor purely defensive.

Red Herrings: Possible PLAN surprise sub surge strategies

China has (or will have) an edge in three important aspects of undersea warfare -– a battle which we mustn’t forget is fought from the surface and in the air and outer space as well as down in the water column. One aspect is her geographic situation. If a PLAN sub breaks through nearby anti-China choke points, that sub gains immediate access to the deep and vast waters of the Pacific Ocean, in which to exploit bad weather, protective acoustic propagation effects, and other local factors in order to disappear, lurk, and then attack. American subs based at Guam, Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. East and West Coasts, because of the tremendous distances involved, might lose the race to reach and block those choke points. The second aspect, by the 2020s, will be China’s weight of sheer numbers of subs –- which we can expect by 2025 to be accompanied by a gradual shift toward more leveling of the playing field as to quality of vessels and crews between the U.S. Navy and the PLAN. The third aspect of China’s edge is that the PRC has no commitment (yet) to act as a worldwide policeman –- or the opposite role more fitting to her, as a mob boss. Thus China can mass her forces to accomplish global policy via regional military actions or threats, whereas the U.S. Submarine Force is of necessity spread around the globe, and overstretched at that.

If China has three times as many subs as America, and our subs are divided between disparate theaters of conflict and counter-insurgency, China can achieve local undersea superiority in the Western Pacific, at least temporarily –- and temporarily may be more than enough to consolidate her objectives. A classic advantage of the aggressor is that they can choose the time and place of attack. China thus, through shrewd planning and skilled logistics coordination, could arrange in secret to surge all of her submarines at a time that a substantial portion of American subs are undergoing maintenance in dry dock, unable to even get underway for days or weeks –- a delay that could act decisively in China’s favor.

If we imagine close to 150 hostile submarines of many different classes all surging at once, even any friendly available diesel subs and ASW forces (Australia, Japan, etc.) would be unable to fill the gaps. Exploiting surprise, China could quickly achieve sea control (or at least sea denial) in major portions of the Western Pacific. Such a large number of submarines in motion at once would be impossible to keep from being noticed, of course, but that wouldn’t be the point. Chinese submarines could follow individual courses that weave around and intersect with each other to play an effective shell game –- it might be impossible for surprised U.S. and allied forces to keep track of which Chinese vessel was which, further disguising actual Chinese objectives for the surge. This would be a particular problem to the degree that some ASW detections rely on optical (LIDAR, LASH), MAD, or surface-wake anomaly signatures, which are less able to identify a target by name or even by class or type, compared to active and passive sonar. (Pre-positioned undersea listening grids might not be of much help against such an overwhelming wave of sortieing vessels.) Once out in the Pacific, the Chinese subs could by pre-arrangement rendezvous to form fifty or sixty mutually supporting or widely scattered three-ship wolf packs, each an expendable task group in an unflankable barrier or uncharted “smart minefield,” with orders to sink any American carrier or SSN that comes charging their way. (A campaign against U.S. merchant shipping would be bad enough in itself!)

What might the PRC’s political policy and the PLAN’s military objectives be in such a hypothetical surprise-surge scenario? Let’s assume an “outside the box” worst case, where Taiwan is friendly or at least neutral to Beijing, and not Beijing’s target. Well, the Pacific Ocean is peppered with small islands and atolls, all of great strategic value in any serious naval fracas. Many of these islands were once occupied by independent natives, then were taken over by various colonial powers, and ownerships changed again as a result of World War I and World War II. Some of these islands and atolls now remain possessions of the United States. These include, for instance, Guam, Saipan, Wake Island, or Midway. Beijing could make the case that the U.S. is a hostile occupying power, and the job of the People’s Liberation Army Navy is to liberate occupied peoples. Suppose the People’s Republic were to exploit their temporary local dominance in sea power (and other military power) to invade and “liberate” these so-called oppressed masses and hold them under “protective custodianship” -- permanently. This gambit fits perfectly with Beijing’s espoused ideologies, and seems likely to receive huge popular support within China. Assume that China invaded in such a way as to minimize initial American casualties, and immediately released all POWs. Would the United States, faced with such a fait accompli, and faced also with the actual or prospective loss of several CVNs and SSNs (not to mention aircraft crews and Marines and various ground troops), really be willing to mobilize and replay World War Two-style island hopping? This would of course depend on many factors, including other military commitments from which the U.S. might not be able to quickly extricate herself, the attitude of the current White House administration at the time, the state of the American economy and national deficit, and the willingness of the American people to shed blood to take back abstract little dots on a map when we ourselves, arguably, years ago snatched those dots from Spain, or independent Hawaii, or whomever.

This is exactly what I mean by a potential PRC “red herring strategy.” Rather than a north-south arena of attempted dominance against the island nations off her shores, especially Taiwan, instead China and Taiwan implement the “one country, two systems” approach. Then China achieves an end-run past the other island nations in her way, accomplishes a bold west-east land grab in mid-Pacific, and dares an embarrassed U.S. to do something about it while PLA soldiers quickly dig in and install hefty anti-air defenses. Shouting matches at the UN Security Council, and fragmentary economic sanctions by third-party countries, would certainly not deter Beijing. The Red Herring Strategy reduces American stature and self-respect, perhaps forever, and leapfrogs China to the fore as a credible superpower.

This scenario, by the way, is designed to be controversial. Its purpose is to shake you up and get you to think.

There are some other points worth posing about Chinese submarine strategies and tactics:

1. While possible, it seems relatively unlikely that China would mimic the Soviet approach of establishing “bastions” of protected waters in which to keep her SSBNs safe from American interference while on strategic deterrent patrol. Russian and Chinese geography and hydrography are too different for this to work well. China’s only potential bastion areas, the Yellow Sea in the north and the Gulf of Tonkin in the south, are rather shallow, and in both cases one entire shoreline consists of nations potentially very hostile to China: North and South Korea in the case of the Yellow Sea, and Vietnam in the case of the Gulf of Tonkin.

2. On the other hand, Chinese SSBNs need not be very well protected or even very stealthy in order to be effective playing pieces in a grand scheme to diminish American clout and spread our SSN fleet dangerously thin. I suspect that China knows from Soviet experience in the Cold War that it’s unlikely a communist SSBN can for very long avoid getting an American (or Royal Navy?) SSN in trail in the boomer’s baffles. The job of the SSN is to destroy the SSBN promptly under certain contingencies related to possible thermonuclear war. But if even really good Chinese SSBNs can’t avoid being followed by Western SSNs (to the extent such SSNs are available), why not go for not-so-good Chinese SSBNs with not-so-good sub-launched ballistic missiles? In reality, even one Chinese H-bomb warhead hitting the continental U.S. interior with a circular error probably of a wildly inaccurate 1,000 miles presents an unacceptable threat. In this way China can dilute the effectiveness of our fast-attacks on deployment without even firing a shot, by using one crappy SSBN as strategic flypaper for a superb SSN.

3. In any major conflict with China, whether cold or hot or first one and then the other, SSBNs on both sides will take on much greater importance that was the case in the struggle between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. The reason, once again, has to do with geography. One glance at a globe will reveal that the trajectories of any ICBMs launched from the heartlands of the U.S. and China at one another must pass over the heartland of the Russian Federation. Considering that in the late 1990s, a Russian early warning radar thought that a pre-announced Norwegian science sounding rocket aimed toward the North Pole was an inbound American ICBM warhead –- and President Yeltsin went as far as opening the briefcase with the nuclear go codes before the mix-up was resolved –- it would seem to be the height of madness for the U.S. and China, in any limited or all-out nuclear exchange, to fight each other right over Russia’s head. This would be an almost certain recipe for tragic misunderstandings, massive Russian retaliation against both other countries, and a true global thermonuclear holocaust. It makes much more sense for China and the U.S. to deploy SSBNs close to each other’s shores, where the missile trajectories, should it ever come to that, would be unambiguous. Granted, this is a fine example of “thinking the unthinkable,” but as a professional risk analyst that’s part of my job.

You can read the entire article at http://www.joebuff.com/essay89.htm.

Hawaii, Japanese State Build Ties

By Associated Press, New York Times, 9 Feb 06

HONOLULU -- Five years ago, a Navy nuclear submarine rammed into a Japanese fishing boat off Oahu, sinking the ship and killing nine people.

Today, Hawaii and Ehime -- the home states of the USS Greeneville and the Ehime Maru fishing vessel -- are working to build ties, while the Navy is teaching submariners lessons learned from the collision in hopes of preventing similar accidents in the future.

''I know the parents still suffer, the families still suffer, but I think the best thing we can do in trying to help the families is to ... make good things happen. And hopefully we're doing that,'' said Earl Okawa, president of the Japan-America Society of Hawaii.

Families of three of the victims and the mayor of Uwajima are scheduled to gather at the Ehime Maru Memorial at Honolulu's Kakaako Waterfront Park this week for a wreath-laying ceremony to remember those killed in the Feb. 9, 2001, collision.

Okawa said the informal observance would be primarily for the families.

Organizers plan to hold a formal ceremony next year, which, according to the traditional Japanese method of counting years, will mark the seventh year since the accident. Under the method, the first time a person is mourned is considered the first year after death, and a year later is considered the second. In Japan, the seventh year is important for observing Buddhist rituals for the dead.

On Tuesday, a single purple orchid lei rested on a steel post in front of the black granite memorial overlooking the Pacific. A marker pointed toward the spot where the Greeneville surfaced beneath the Ehime Maru, a vessel used to train teenagers to fish commercially.

In the five years since the collision, the two states have drawn closer. Hawaii and Ehime became sister states in 2003, while Honolulu and Uwajima signed a sister-city agreement a year later.

In March, 20 students from Honolulu's Kawananakoa Middle School plan to visit Uwajima Minami Junior High School in Ehime. Twenty students from Uwajima Minami will return the visit in June.

Uwajima Fisheries High School has built a new Ehime Maru ship to train its students to be fisherman. Currently en route to Hawaii on a training mission, the ship's 19 students, two teachers and 20 crew members will mourn the victims on Thursday while at sea.

The Navy and the submarine's captain apologized for the accident, although not as quickly as the victims' families wished. The Navy's court of inquiry let Cmdr. Scott Waddle retire at full rank and pension. The court concluded that Waddle rushed through mandatory safety procedures while demonstrating an emergency surfacing drill for the benefit of civilians touring the submarine. The sub's rudder sliced into the hull of the Ehime Maru.

The investigation found that Waddle was in a hurry because he didn't want the submarine to be late returning to Pearl Harbor with the guests. As a result, he failed to properly check for nearby ships before ordering the Greeneville to surface.

But the Navy has learned from the accident, officials say.

''It's affected really everything that we do,'' said Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force. ''It's something that everyone knows about, everyone's studied and every single person who is teaching and assessing will refer to and use as an example.''

H-Bomb Returns

FreeMarketNews.com, 8 Feb 06

The United States is developing its first H-bomb in over 20 years, the first of several new nuclear explosives on the drawing board. Twenty scientists at Livermore and Los Alamos, New Mexico are competing to present the first design for “reliable replacement warheads” or RRW’s.

“We are on the verge of a very exciting time,” said Linton Brooks, the nation’s top nuclear weapons executive, last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory. Designers of the new weapon want simpler devices that are easier maintain and, should they fall into the hands of the wrong people, be able to disarm or destroy them remotely, according to The Oakland Tribune and other reports.

The United States currently has 5,700 nuclear bombs and warheads of 12 types, plus 4,700 in reserve to back up weapons that become too old or no longer work. Most are 25 to 35 years old and were all tested in the Nevada desert before the testing ban started in 1992. The RRW would replace the W76 and W88, two submarine-launched weapons that are the most numerous active weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

Walker's World: Can Taiwan rely on the US?

By Martin Walker, UPI Editor, 08 February 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- A senior Taiwanese military commander has thrown complicated new factor into the latest skirmish in the recurrent war of words between politicians across the Taiwan Straits.

General Hu Chen-pu, the head of the General Political Warfare Bureau in the Ministry of defense, has publicly warned his civilian leaders that they cannot take American military assistance for granted, and that Taiwan has to be able to defend itself with its own resources.

"The U.S. has never promised to come to Taiwan's aid in the event of cross-strait hostilities. Nor has Taiwan anticipated such aid from the U.S. for we can never be sure if it would render us assistance," Hu said during a press briefing held this week at the ministry's new combat-maneuver training center.

General Hu's warning, which came as Beijing scolded Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian as a "troublemaker and saboteur," were also intended to put pressure on the Taiwanese parliament finally to authorize the $18 billion re-armament plan that has long been stalled in the legislature. The U.S. has already agreed in principle to provide the Patriot anti-missile system, maritime patrol aircraft and submarines.

General Hu's caution that the United States may not necessarily rush to help if Taiwan is attacked reflects rising concern in the Pentagon and among senior figures in the U.S. Navy that the balance of military power is shifting significantly in China's coastal waters.

Recently retired naval officers have told United Press International that "it is now an open question" whether the Navy could again deploy two aircraft carrier task forces to the Taiwan Straits, as the Clinton administration did in 1996 when Chinese missile "tests" threatened to restrict shipping access to Taiwan's ports. The U.S. move, intended as a warning to Beijing, then calmed the situation, but China's re-armament program is changing the military balance.

The Pentagon's latest Quadrennial Defense Review, released last week, claims that China has "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could, over time, offset U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter strategies."

"China continues to invest heavily in its military, particularly in its strategic arsenal and capabilities designed to improve its ability to project power beyond its borders. Since 1996, China has increased its defense spending by more than 10 percent in real terms in every year except 2003," says the QDR.

"The pace and scope of China's military build-up already puts regional military balances at risk. China is likely to continue making large investments in high-end, asymmetric military capabilities, emphasizing electronic and cyber-warfare; counter-space operations; ballistic and cruise missiles; advanced integrated air defense systems; next generation torpedoes; advanced submarines; strategic nuclear strike from modern, sophisticated land and sea-based systems; and theater unmanned aerial vehicles," the QDR goes on.

China's purchase of Kilo-class submarines and advanced Su-30 strike warplanes from Russia represents a serious military threat to the U.S. carriers, on which reinforcement of a threatened Taiwan would depend. Senior U.S. naval officers are concerned that the Bush administration has not yet thought through the implications of this, and of the possibility of losing an aircraft carrier to enemy action.

"That could mean losing 6,000 sailors - double the losses we suffered on 9/11," one newly retired admiral told this reporter recently. ""How do we retaliate for that? Do we counter-strike the Chinese mainland, when there are thousands of U.S. civilians and businessmen there, and corporate America is besieging Washington to warn that we might be hitting our own factories and essential trading partners?"

General Hu's remarks reflect similar concerns among the Taiwanese military, whose Integrated Assessment Office expects China to deploy some 1,800 ballistic missiles over the next 5 years, and to deploy a total of 50 diesel and nuclear submarines over the coming decade. By 2015, China is expected to deploy 38 new warships like the impressive new home-built "Shenzhen" destroyer, and there are plans to build aircraft carriers. For the moment, however, China's main naval asset is the fleet of 4 Russian-built Sovremenny-class missile destroyers, each carrying 54 Sunburn missiles, Russia's highly advanced SS-N-22 anti-ship missile that is a serious worry for the U.S. Navy.

Ironically, the integration of the economies of China and Taiwan has never been closer. China is Taiwan's biggest customer, taking 38 percent of Taiwanese exports last year, worth over $70 billion. After Japan and South Korea, Taiwan's is China's third largest source of imports.

But the cross-straits politics have been delicate since Taiwan elected President Chen, who last week suggested that the island should "forget about" reunification with the mainland and proposed to scrap the largely moribund National Unification Council. President Chen has lately backed away from his proposal for a new Taiwanese constitution to spell out the country's independence; a move that China says would provoke military action.

Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office slammed Chen this week, saying: "This demonstrates once again that he is a troublemaker and saboteur of cross-strait relations and peace and stability in Asia."

U.S. State department spokesmen also criticized President Chen's remarks, stressing that the U.S. maintained its long-standing policy of "one China" and opposes Taiwanese independence. But President Bush's statement, early in his first term, that the United States would "stand by Taiwan" in the event on an attack, and the offer of U.S. arms, has emboldened the pro-independence movement.

The concern that is growing in the U.S. Navy is that Taiwan is being politically provocative to Beijing while declining to boost its own defenses, largely because President Chen seems convinced that American protection is guaranteed - a complacency that Taiwan's own military now seems at pains to challenge.

The ROC dare not ignore its obligations

By Chen Kuo-hsiung, Taipei Times, 8 Feb 06

The US Defense Department recently published its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which outlines a new strategy for dealing with the threats facing the US and stresses that conventional warfare has been replaced by the threat of terrorism, the possibility of terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction and the rise of strategic rivals.

The review also identified four goals:

· First, defeating terrorist networks.

· Second, comprehensively defending the homeland.

· Third, shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads.

· Fourth, preventing hostile states and non-state actors from acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction.

It is worth noting that this document categorizes China as an "emerging power," along with Russia and India. But it goes on to say that China is the mostly likely one of the three "to compete militarily with the US" and the nation most likely to deploy military capabilities that could threaten what it terms "traditional US military advantages." Clearly, the US is looking warily at the growing threat posed by China.

Although the US claims that it envisions cooperation with China and expects Beijing to play a constructive role in the international community, this is only one side of a two pronged strategy directed at China. With regard to strategic deployment, the US has focused more attention on Asia than it has on Europe. The US plans to make two significant adjustments to its naval forces. First, it will transfer 60 percent of its submarine fleet to the Pacific. Second, it will ensure that six out of its 11 aircraft carrier groups are always ready for combat in the Pacific.

The QDR also points out that the US will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the US or other friendly countries, and it will seek to deter aggression or coercion. Should deterrence fail, the US would deny a hostile power its strategic and operational objective. The report also points out that the US, its allies and partners must hedge against the possibility that any major or emerging power will choose a hostile path.

Whether or not Taiwan will continue to be protected under the US' security policy over the next two decades will depend on how the relationship between the two is defined. The question is whether Taiwan is regarded as a "friendly nation" or an "ally."

For an answer to this question, we have to review the US' Taiwan policy. In Oct. 1998, former US president Bill Clinton signed the Defense Authorization Act, specifying Taiwan as one of the US' three major allies in the Asia Pacific region and supporting the inclusion of Taiwan in the US theater missile defense program.

In August 2002, US President George W. Bush signed a bill which appropriated additional funds to enhance the US counter-terrorism efforts and regarded Taiwan as a US "ally" so that when the nation is participating in this anti-terrorist campaign, its behavior will not be restricted by the International Criminal Court. There is no doubt that Taiwan is an ally of the US.

From a global perspective, it seems that Taiwan is a part of the US' new grand strategy. While Taiwan is under the US' security umbrella, it has to fulfill its obligations by taking precautions to guard against any hostile and emerging powers.

When considering such a strategic framework, we should realize the importance of the proposed arms procurement to Taiwan. The delay of the arms procurement bill should not be tolerated any longer.

Chen Kuo-hsiung is a research fellow at the Taiwan National Security Institute.

Russian Navy Plans To Order 40 Corvettes

Itar-Sass News Agency (Russia), 9 Feb 06

MOSCOW - Russia's Navy is planning to order some 40 corvettes, ten for each fleet. The first vessel of this class will make the maiden voyage as early as this May, senior officials at the Severnaya Verf shipyard in St.Petersburg told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

"A corvette which is a new generation warship by its performance characteristics and weaponry, will be launched in May to begin a complete range of trials. It is expected to be combat ready and join the Navy in 2007," the officials said.

The first two corvettes will be given to the Northern and Baltic Fleets.

Simultaneously, efforts are underway to round up production capacities and place an orders for building such corvettes with a Maritime shipyard, to replenish the taskforce of Russia's Pacific Fleet.

The Northern design bureau which developed the corvette, has said vessels of this class are "a must to our fleet." They will replace small submarine hunters of Project 1124M because as they surpass them to a considerable extent in firepower and seagoing qualities. In late January, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov briefed a meeting of the Maritime board under the Russian government on the corvette project.

"We've launched the construction of a series of corvettes for near maritime zone, the first of them will go into service in 2006," Ivanov said.

The corvette is intended for such mission as the protection of water areas and ensuring of a favorable operations regime for surface ships and submarines in coastal areas. Its primary function is the search and monitoring of submarines and the fight against them.

It has a displacement of 3,000 tons, a speed of up to 35 knots and fuel endurance of 10 days. The main weapons include anti-submarine missiles, air defense systems, torpedoes and artillery systems.

Earlier, Navy chief Admiral Vladimir Masorin attended the official ceremony which launched the construction of a new generation frigate of Project 22350. It will be the largest surface ship ever built after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The project will be completed by 2009.

Masorin's aide Igor Dygalo said the frigate has a displacement of 4,500 tonnes and a cruising range of 4,000 miles.

It will carry anti-ship cruise missiles, antisubmarine missile and artillery complexes and a Ka-32 helicopter.

Leaky Canadian naval ship, sub return to port

Toronto Star, 8 Feb 06

HALIFAX (CP) - The navy's sole East Coast supply ship has sprung leaks in both boilers while Canada's only working submarine came back to port early Wednesday to fix a leaky air valve.

Technicians at HMC Dockyard in Halifax are working to fix the problems on the eve of a set of exercises both vessels are slated to participate in later this month off the eastern seaboard.

"It's disheartening for any sailor not to be at sea in his ship," said Cmdr. Gary Hatton, captain of HMCS Preserver.

The steam turbine ship was conducting trials off Nova Scotia on Saturday when a crew member detected a problem in one of the vessel's two boilers.

"There's lots of pipes in there and they started to leak," Hatton said.

Preserver returned to Halifax on Sunday to repair four of those steel tubes. When it arrived, experts examined the 36-year-old ship's other boiler, just in case.

"In something that's this old, these issues can . . . be mirrored in the other boiler as well," he said. "We checked that out and, sure enough, there was not as bad a problem, but we discovered a leak in one of the pipes in the other boiler as well."

Technicians have already fixed the steam pipes in one boiler and are now working on the other one. The tubes that run through the boilers are used to create "super-heated steam" that drives the ship, he said.

Preserver has spent only 17 days at sea since completing a $40-million refit last summer.

The ship is scheduled to leave Halifax on Feb. 20 to participate in exercises off Virginia.

HMCS Windsor, which had slipped out to sea Monday, returned to port a few hours early on Wednesday to repair a leaky air valve on the submarine.

Windsor is expected to leave Halifax again in about a week.

Another sub, HMCS Corner Brook, has been out of service since April 2004. Both HMCS Victoria and HMCS Chicoutimi, which caught fire last year, killing Lieut. Chris Saunders of Halifax, are also out of commission.

Kalam to review naval fleet at Visakhapatnam

By The Times of India Online, 08 February 2006

NEW DELHI: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will review the Indian Navy's fleet at Visakhapatnam on Sunday, a ceremonial event showcasing the country's maritime might that is being held for the first time on the eastern coast.

The naval fleet review is held once during the tenure of each president, who is also the supreme commander of India's armed forces. All previous reviews since 1953 have been held at Mumbai on the western coast.

The day after the fleet review, Kalam will become the first president to make an operational sortie on a submarine in the waters off Visakhapatnam.

Travelling in a Russian-made Kilo-class vessel, Kalam witness the intricacies of submarine operations, including the simulated launch of torpedoes.

Sixty warships, including two submarines, and 40 aircraft will participate in the ninth fleet review at Visakhapatnam, which is the headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command as well as the Eastern Fleet.

Besides the Indian Navy's ships, the event will feature Coast Guard patrol boats and merchant vessels.

"The fleet review is a long-standing tradition observed by major navies. It is a ceremonial event where the president witnesses the navy's strength and reaffirms his faith in its ability to safeguard the nation's maritime interests," said Rear Admiral Pradeep Chauhan, additional chief of naval staff.

Chauhan told reporters on Wednesday the navy had decided to stage the review at Visakhapatnam "to showcase the growing strategic and economic importance of the eastern coast".

On February 12, Kalam will receive a 21-gun salute and inspect a guard of honour before embarking the patrol vessel INS Sukanya, which has been designated the "presidential yacht" for the review to be held in waters off the Ramakrishna beach.

"The president will then review the rows of anchored ships and a mobile column of smaller ships and submarines," said Chauhan. The review will culminate in a flypast by naval and Coast Guard aircraft.

Among the major ships taking part in the review are the aircraft carrier INS Viraat, the Delhi-class destroyers and the Godavari-class frigates.

Kalam will also release a stamp on the Eastern Naval Command and witness a firepower demonstration at Visakhapatnam on February 12. The firing of missiles and other weapons will be done close to the shore so that they can be witnessed by people on the beach.

The firepower demonstration will be followed by an aerobatics display by the Sagar Pawan team, a beating retreat ceremony and a fireworks and laser show.

On February 13, Kalam will present the presidential colours to the Eastern Fleet, signifying "the coming of age" of the navy's fighting arm on the eastern coast and recognising its contributions to furthering India's security interests in strategic sea-lanes in the Bay of Bengal and Malacca Straits.

Following this, Kalam will make an operational sortie on a submarine and then interact with children.

Nerpa shipyard finished dismantling of nuclear submarine sponsored by UK

Bellona, 8 Feb 06

A group of the RWE Nukem specialists from UK inspected the final stage of the nuclear submarine Victor-III dismantling at the Nerpa shipyard in Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk region.

The UK Department of Trade and Industry sponsored the project.

The Nerpa’s chief engineer Rostislav Rimdenok told Interfax, that it was much safer to ship the retired submarines to the Nerpa than to Zvezdochka plant in Severodvinsk for dismantling as Nerpa is closer to the submarine bases. Besides, the shipyard operates the US-made “guillotine” capable to produce 73 tonnes of scrap metal per hour out of the submarine remains. Rimdenok said Victor-III was scrapped 3 months ahead of schedule.

The UK representatives were shown the empty reactor compartment, which would be shipped to Sayda bay for long-term storage. The RWE Nukem chief consultant said to Interfax, that this is the last submarine dismantled in the frames of Russian-British program, but there will be other programs before summer. It is expected that Nerpa will continue cooperation with Norway and Germany.