How Will the World Pay for Enormous Debt Accumulated by the Coronavirus? The macroeconomic shock to the world economy from the COVID-19 pandemic is arguably unprecedented in modern times. by Anton Muscatelli

The macroeconomic shock to the world economy from the COVID-19 pandemic is arguably unprecedented in modern times. The financial response by governments of the major economies has been substantial.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the G20 had deployed US$7 trillion (£6.2 trillion) in direct spending, tax relief and lending by the end of May. That is more than 10% of their combined GDP for 2019, averaging over 12% among the advanced economies. This exceeds the fiscal support measures taken by governments during the great financial crisis of 2007-09, as can be seen in the map below.

Yet economists agree that 2020’s interventions were both necessary and timely. More may also be needed. In many of the industrialised economies, governments have focused on employment support and subsidised loans to businesses of all sizes. Some countries like Germany are now announcing major investments in green infrastructure and consumer incentives like cutting VAT and subsidies for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Debt and more debt

In the UK, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) currently estimates that the total impact on government borrowing will be £132.5 billion in 2020-21. This will widen the deficit to over 15% of GDP, compared to less than 2% in 2018-19.

Even this depends on whether the lockdowns end and economic activity can resume. If not, deficits could exceed those seen in wartime, when they peaked in the regions of 25%-30% of GDP.

Many wonder how the additional debt will be paid for. For the UK, even on the OBR’s most optimistic scenario that economic activity will rapidly recover in the three months following a three-month lockdown, the debt-to-GDP ratio peaks at 110% and returns to 95% in 2021. If the recovery is much slower, most governments will face very high debt-to-GDP ratios indeed.

Like in the great financial crisis, central banks are playing an important role in the market for government debt with major quantitative easing (QE) programmes. QE involves central banks creating new money to buy assets – mostly government debt in the form of sovereign bonds, and sometimes also commercial debt.

On March 19, the Bank of England said it would increase its holdings of UK government bonds (gilts) and certain corporate bonds by £200 billion to £645 billion. The ECB announced a €750 billion (£668 billion) programme around the same time, then expanded it on June 4 to €1.35 trillion. The Fed’s new QE commitment is open-ended, with over US$1.5 trillion of assets purchased since the crisis began.

It’s important to note that QE programmes are not directly financing government spending. The money created by the central banks is used to buy government debt from the likes of investment funds which have bought it from the government. The central banks are propping up demand for this debt to ensure that the cost of government borrowing stays low. This potentially avoids disorderly situations where investors become more wary of buying the debt because they think that the country in question has become a bigger credit risk.

QE also supports economic recovery through other channels. First, when central banks put new money into government and corporate debt, it encourages investors to redirect their money into relatively similar assets like shares or different corporate debt.

This is known as the portfolio rebalancing effect, and it brings benefits. For instance, if extra demand causes the price of certain shares or corporate debt to increase, the cost of borrowing for the companies in question will fall. This lowers the cost of borrowing across the economy.

Second, the purchase of government debt from banks gives them more money to potentially lend. This is reversed when the QE programme ends. Third, the asset purchases create stability. During the great financial crisis, one of the greatest impacts of QE was to signal to financial markets that the central banks were serious about sustaining economic recovery with a loose monetary policy that kept interest rates low.

Risks and consequences

The key question about QE is whether giving governments breathing space to borrow, while loosening monetary policy, will have unforeseen consequences. After the 2007-09 crisis, there were concerns that QE would drive up asset prices and cause people to take excessive risks. There is evidence that this did happen.

This time around, we have already seen stock markets surging. The S&P 500 is up 43% since mid-March. Linked to this are concerns that unwinding a very large QE programme at the end of the crisis could destabilise markets – note that the QE injections following the previous crisis have never been completely reversed.

Another worry is that QE may be insufficient to stimulate demand in the economy after a crisis as deep as that caused by COVID-19. Some economists, such as Jordi Gali and Refet Gürkaynak and Deborah Lucas, are arguing for a so-called “helicopter drop” of money to support fiscal policy.

What they mean is central banks giving new money direct to their governments that would never need to be repaid – known as direct monetary financing. This would remove the need for those governments to issue extra debt to the markets.

It’s probably too early to resort to such financing, without seeing how long the crisis lasts and how effective QE is in supporting governments in debt financing. Meantime, more could be done to spread the debt burden across several generations.

For example, governments could issue debt with very long maturity dates like 50 or 100 years, or even debt that never matures – so-called perpetual debt or consols – as is common in war-time finance. The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is currently being urged by many in his party to think along these lines.

It is also important to realise that direct monetary financing is not a free lunch.

Regrettably, there is no magic money tree in economics. Ultimately current government spending is a claim on real resources that has to be financed either directly through future taxes and growth or lower future spending, or through future inflation (which is a tax on money and creditors).

The crisis will, however, mark a change in the relationship between governments and central banks. Blurring the boundaries between the two, even through QE, requires them to co-ordinate their actions much more closely. In the post-COVID era, the notion that central banks are independent of governments is bound to be somewhat diminished.

Will Europe Join France And Germany's Drive Towards A 6th Generation Stealth Fighter? Spain has stated its intention to sign on. by Sebastien Roblin

Here's What You Need To Remember: The last few decades show that stealth fighter development and operation are both enormously expensive and prone to huge cost overruns, technical problems and even outright failure. Pooling together multiple partner nations could help split R&D costs and improve unit costs by creating economies of scale through larger procurements. This is why the UK, France, Germany and Italy have cooperated on past military jets like the Jaguar, Alpha Jet and the more modern Tornado and Typhoon.

On December 3, the Spanish Ministry of Defense announced its desire to join the Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project to build a sixth-generation stealth fighter and an accompanying drone “wingman.” The initial Spanish buy-in is projected to amount to just twenty-five million euros over two years, but the document makes clear Madrid wants its industry to have a role in producing the next-generation fighters as well as procuring them to replace its older EF-18A Hornet fighters.

The Spanish announcement, however, also made revealing passing references to the United Kingdom’s similar Tempest stealth fighter program, which was unveiled in July 2018. Team Tempest was already partnered with Italian firm Leonardo for sensors and avionics, and the Spanish document claims the Netherlands is also involved in the British program.

Earlier, Spain had been weighing the benefits of joining Tempest versus FCAS. The Spanish Ministry of Defense stated it was “convinced” the two sixth-generation jet fighter programs would merge “given the huge investment required for their development.”

The FCAS project initially, and pointedly, made no mention of inviting British participation, likely due to Brexit. Since then, however, both Airbus and Dassault have sent positive signals regarding the Tempest project despite its status as a theoretical competitor.

In fact, one point of view is that the FCAS and Tempest programs may amount to an elaborate form of courtship, in which both multi-national programs coyly pretend disinterest in each other while seeking at every turn to make their projects more appealing and thus entice an eventual offer of cooperation.

The last few decades show that stealth fighter development and operation are both enormously expensive and prone to huge cost overruns, technical problems and even outright failure. Pooling together multiple partner nations could help split R&D costs and improve unit costs by creating economies of scale through larger procurements. This is why the UK, France, Germany and Italy have cooperated on past military jets like the Jaguar, Alpha Jet and the more modern Tornado and Typhoon.

But multinational programs have also been hampered by the need to compromise designs to fit competing national doctrines, capability requirements and domestic industrial interests. These considerations led France to duck out of both the Tornado and Typhoon in favor of her purely domestic Mirage 2000 and Rafale jets.

To be sure, the FCAS and Tempest concepts share a lot in common as they both aspire to incorporate a checklist of features expected of the still purely notional sixth-generation fighter, which is intended to be a leap ahead of today’s F-22, F-35 and J-20 stealth fighters. Common features include: stealthy airframes, powerful sensors designed to fuse with friendly forces (now including satellite assets), very long-range air-to-air missiles, laser or microwave weapons, ability to control friendly accompanying drones, optional manning (ability to fly without a human pilot onboard) and resilience versus cyberattacks.

Of course, the proposals, which truthfully are far from being set in stone, do have differences. FCAS properly refers to a combination of a manned next generation fighter with an unmanned “loyal wingman” type drone called the Next Generation Weapon System. (Hopefully the fetish for ultra-generic names will not last.) In October 2018, Dassault unveiled a tailless NGF mockup with W-shaped wings.

The twin-tailed Tempest proposal unveiled this July is “optionally-manned” and appears more detailed overall than FCAS, with specific provisions for adaptive-cycle Rolls-Royce turbofans, hypersonic weapons and computer-AIs to assist the pilot. However, neither program has specified much in terms of flight performance parameters.

Tempest and FCAS also appear to have different notional timelines, with production FCAS fighters expected in 2040 and Tempests due in 2035. Of course, at this early stage the successful completion of either project is far from assured.

One issue that looms over the two stealth fighter programs is Brexit, which spurred the Franco-German cooperation on FCAS in the first place, and makes cooperation with the UK awkward, particularly in the event of a no-deal Brexit. However, rather than being the bastions of chauvinistic nationalism one might expect, European militaries are often arguably more prone to multinational cooperation than their civilian governments, perhaps being keenly aware of limits to their capabilities outside of an alliance framework. However, this still leaves outstanding questions as to whether the EU will develop a “European Army” parallel to NATO—a stance which the UK has long opposed.

So far, only the United States and China have successfully developed stealth aircraft, while credible efforts by Russia and Japan have stalled—at least for now. Thus, despite the difficulties of multinational cooperation, a pan-European project seems far more promising for the future of European military aviation—if the various players can get over some hefty political hurdles.

Spain’s announcement shows both FCAS and Tempest are gathering mass and momentum and signals optimism that the differences can be bridged over—but of course, the message itself is also part of the diplomatic game.

Why Russia Is Being So Quiet About Its New S-500 Air Defense System Follow the money. by Mark Episkopos

Here's What You Need To Remember: Russian sources remain tight-lipped concerning the S-500’s development, let alone on any possible technical problems. The S-500 is virtually complete, but the Kremlin is dragging their heels for commercial reasons.

2019 is on track to be a big year for Russian surface-to-air missile systems. From the new S-350 “Vityaz” to additional S-300V4 brigades, scores of modernized Russian artillery systems are poised to enter into military service over the coming months.

But the elephant in the room, Russia’s upcoming S-500 “Triumfator-M” missile system, remains conspicuously absent.

The much-vaunted next generation of Russian missile defense, the S-500 boasts a host of best-in-class performance features. The Triumfator is purportedly able to engage anti-ballistic missiles at six hundred kilometers, an improvement of two hundred km over the already-formidable S-400. The S-500’s range is matched by its no less impressive ability to track and intercept up to ten missile warheads flying at a speed of over 4 miles a second, as previously outlines by a National Interest report citing Russian state news.

Considerably less concrete information is available on the S-500’s armaments suite. Initial leaks suggested modified NPO 9M82MD anti-aircraft missiles, but later reports have settled on the S-400’s 48N6 line as the likelier prospect. As for anti-missile options, the S-500 is widely believed to feature specially designed 77N6 and 77N6-N1 missiles.

Russian media and military experts believe that the S-500 will be the first missile defense system able to reliably target and neutralize fifth-generation stealth fighters like the F-35, a claim too early to meaningfully evaluate at this stage in the S-500’s development cycle.

“The S-500 is a blow against American prestige,” Almaz-Antey head engineer Pavel Sozinov told Russian media. “Our system neutralizes American offensive weapons, and surpasses all of America’s much-hyped anti-air and anti-missile systems.”

The S-500 rests on impressive specifications and ambitious manufacturer claims, but not all is well in Russian missile defense paradise. Triumfator-M was first declared to be completed in 2011, with serial production to begin in 2014. That date was promptly pushed back to mid 2017, and then again to 2020.

So, what accounts for these almost cyclical delays? The most immediate cause that springs to mind are development troubles, and for good reason; unexpected, costly technical hitches on the heels of wildly-optimistic deadlines are an all too common story in strategic weapons development.

Russian sources remain tight-lipped concerning the S-500’s development, let alone on any possible technical problems. Still, recent reports have offered an alternative explanation: The S-500 is virtually complete, but the Kremlin is dragging their heels for commercial reasons. That is, they are afraid that releasing the S-500 would poach on the massive export success of the S-400.

Prospective clients may lose interest in the S-400 if they come to believe that it’s on the verge of obsolescence. Strategically vital clients like Turkey and India may very well be annoyed that they crossed major US diplomatic hurdles only to buy expensive S-400 systems that will be outdated by the time of delivery.

Further compounding the problem, Russia will want to proliferate the S-500 among their own armed forces before offering it to foreign buyers. Concrete S-500 export plans remain a distant blimp on the horizon, an impossibility until 2021 even in the best of circumstances. The Kremlin therefore risks not only jeopardizing ongoing S-400 deals, but doing so with no immediate substitute to offer. By this line of reasoning, The Kremlin shot itself in the foot by revealing the S-500 too early, and is now stalling until the S-400 reaches the end of its market cycle.

At a time when Russia’s preferred approach for defending beleaguered projects is to go on high-profile marketing offensives (See their recent documentary series on the Su-57 as a case in point), this theory explains why the Kremlin has been so uncharacteristically silent about the S-500. It also aligns with the underlying goals behind Russia’s arms export strategy: if they want to foster stable, long-term trade relationships with key buyers like Turkey, then they have to go out of their way to show that they stand behind their product. 

How AI and Networked Drones Will Help America Wage Future Wars Not longer just sci-fi. by Kris Osborn

As the Army looks toward future warfare scenarios, it is increasingly emphasizing the need to fully network air and ground drones to one another. This is vital as a way to fully defend advancing armored units in war and to pursue new applications of Combined Arms Maneuver. 

Much of this hinges upon taking new steps with automation and AI systems to not only connect manned vehicles with air and ground drones but also extend command and control options by networking drones-to-drones in combat autonomously. Much of the work is taking place with Army Futures Command’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, which is working closely with Carnegie Mellon University. 

“Up at CMU they are working on algorithms to link ground and air vehicles—and it becomes not manned-unmanned teaming but unmanned-unmanned teaming. Go out in this grid square and go identify this threat, so from a ground and air perspective, those vehicles talk to each other. We are collecting training data to train our algorithms,” General John Murray, Commanding General of Army Futures Command, told TNI in an interview. 

So what would unmanned-unmanned teaming look like? What undiscovered advantages would it bring to combat? The Army is already successfully testing, developing and even deploying elements of ground and air manned-unmanned teaming. Moreover, the Army also already enables airborne helicopters to control both the flight path and sensor payload of nearby drones from the cockpit, and the service continues to make rapid progress with its Robotic Combat Vehicle program to create multiple variants of ground-combat robots. 

Part of this broad unmanned system effort has also involved the use of large robotic combat vehicles being used to, for instance, breach a tank ditch with soldiers hundreds of meters away to enable follow on armored columns to more safely and effectively cross difficult terrain and advance in combat. The concept, of course, is to use forward operating drones to carry ammunition, conduct reconnaissance, breach obstacles, assist ground-attack command and control and even fire weapons when controlled by a human operator. 

A new phase, would be to connect ground and air autonomous systems to one-another, as Murray indicated. In a tactical scenario, for instance, an air drone could identify maneuvering enemy formations, quickly process and disseminate combat-crucial elements from its video sensors using advanced algorithms and cue a small fleet of advancing ground drones. Such a synergy would give ground commanders an integrated air-ground combat picture in real time, massively improving attack options—all from a safer standoff distance. 

A key advantage of this kind of technical advance is, simply put, speed. Ground attackers could have more vital information faster amid quick-changing landwar dynamics, without having to separately stovepipe drone sensor data at separate command and control centers or experience substantial latency. Perhaps of greatest importance, much of the data would autonomously be analyzed and organized for human decision-makers, in a matter of seconds in some instances. AI-enabled processing systems can increasingly draw upon vast databases to assess prior combat scenarios, assess a wide range of combat factors such as navigation, weather and heat signatures from enemy vehicles. This means they can perform near real-time analytics on the information and so quickly inform friendly ground forces. 

For instance, a ground drone could surveil an enemy target and instantly calculate its distance, speed and various characteristics based on existing data. Imagine this kind of information being bounced off a database to quickly identify the exact threat. Or perhaps an AI system can analyze which weapons might be most effective against a certain target by virtue of performing near instant analysis of prior combat scenarios. Once many of these calculations are made autonomously, information can then transmit to an air drone which might be in a better position to attack. From there, the airborne drone would perform its own AI-enabled analytics—giving ground Commanders a nearly immediate option to destroy a moving enemy quickly. 

Much of this connectivity would of course greatly expedite the Army’s push for improved air-ground-sea-cyber multi-domain operations. Murray explained that before technology can fully come to fruition, much analysis is done on conceptual shifts about combat tactics and how new techniques may change maneuver formations in war. 

“Our multi-domain operations concept will transition into new doctrine to replace AirLand battle. A concept is a concept because you don’t yet have all the tools to execute it, so there are certain things related to the main operations we don’t have yet. What comes next? If technology continues to evolve at the rate it is evolving, and there are all indications that it is going to, if you look out into the future, if you don’t start thinking about it, it is going to be here before you know it and you are going to be behind,” Murray said. 

Why Russia's T-90S Tank Is Beating China's Armor On The Global Arms Market Chinese military experts have already voiced displeasure at the PRC’s VT4 and VT5 tanks being passed over in Vietnam’s procurement search. by Mark Episkopos

It should be noted that the export tank’s successor, the markedly more powerful but also more expensive T-90MS, is being offered in addition to the T-90S rather than as its strict replacement. The Kremlin seeks to target different segments of the heavy armor market by continuing to offer the T-90S, which remains viable in a wide range of medium-intensity conflicts across the second and third world.

In a tank world of ever more expensive bells and whistles, Russia’s T-90S tried to tell a design story of modesty and value-driven restraint. Did it succeed?

The Russian military suspended domestic orders of its cheap, effective T-90 tanks in 2011, but continues to offer the T-90S export variant. Russian media reported earlier this week that Vietnam has received over thirty T-90S and T-90SK units, the first batch of a 2016 order for sixty-four of these tanks.

Jane’s Defence Report corroborated this development with a statement from a Vietnamese military insider: "The first batch of T-90S MBTs - totaling no fewer than 30 platforms - was delivered to a Vietnamese seaport in December.

Introduced in 1992 by the manufacturer Uralvagonzavod, the original T-90 battle tank quickly became a staple armor solution of the Russian Land Forces for its cost-effective blend of firepower, handling and durability. Resisting the twin temptations to reverse-engineer the competing American M1 Abrams on the one hand and to splurge on an entirely new design concept on the other, Russian engineers instead opted for a no-frills solution that weaved together the best design principles from their previous T-72 and T-80 tanks. The result was a clear iterative step forward, combining the T-80’s battle-tested 1A45 fire control system with the hull and maneuverability of the T-72.

Notably, they achieved this at around half the production cost of the M1 Abrams. The T-90 jettisoned cutting-edge innovation for raw performance value, a winning strategy for enticing global importers who prioritize cost-effective functionality over the inclusion of the latest cutting-edge technology.

The T-90’s export variant, the T-90S, was largely a copy of the original. It offered the same 125mm 2A46M smoothbore gun, also powered by a 840-horsepower (hp) V-84MS engine. More significant differences were to be found in the T-90SK, a commander’s version featuring additional radio and navigation systems over the baseline T-90.

The T-90S scored a slew of major export successes over the past decade. India purchased over 300 T-90S units, albeit without their integrated Shtora-1 electronic countermeasure (ECM) system. Other T-90S buyers come from a veritable who’s who list of Soviet arms purchasers: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Algeria, Libya and allegedly Venezuela; less likely candidates include Peru.

Most interestingly, the Iraqi government agreed to purchase over thirty T-90S tanks to replace their more expensive M1 Abrams units on the heels of a diplomatic row with Washington.

In a notable illustration of external market forces driving internal modernization, minor improvements to maintain the competitiveness of the T-90S were rolled into the subsequent T-90A upgrade. These included a welded turret and, later, a more powerful 1,000 hp V-92S2 engine.

Rosoboronexport, Russia’s exporting agency, is scheduled to complete the rest of Vietnam’s T-90S order in 2019. While no weapon can retain market relevance forever, the T-90S has proven remarkably resilient due to a series of sound design choices on the part of its manufacturer.

It should be noted that the export tank’s successor, the markedly more powerful but also more expensive T-90MS, is being offered in addition to the T-90S rather than as its strict replacement. The Kremlin seeks to target different segments of the heavy armor market by continuing to offer the T-90S, which remains viable in a wide range of medium-intensity conflicts across the second and third world.

The T-90’s fiercest competition comes from China’s burgeoning armor export catalog. Chinese military experts have already voiced displeasure at the PRC’s VT4 and VT5 tanks being passed over in Vietnam’s procurement search.

Why Iran's Armed Forces Rank Higher Than Israel's Military While GlobalFirepower.com’s formula is opaque, it is likely that the website is using many traditional factors to calculate its scores. by Michael Peck

Here's What You Need To Remember: What does all this prove? First, as anyone who peruses defense websites soon learns, rankings of military power are often so arbitrary that they become useless at best and ridiculous at worst. But more important is the arbitrary nature of these indexes, which tend to ignore the conditions that govern military power.

Iran’s armed forces ranked thirteenth in the world, according to GlobalFirepower.com’s 2018 rankings, which apparently combined various statistics to assemble a composite military power rating (0.3131 for Iran, with 0.00 being a perfect score).

Israel ranked sixteenth, with a military power rating of 0.3444. By comparison, the United States ranks Number One, followed by Russia, China, India, France and Britain.

Curiously, Egypt is in twelfth place, ahead of Iran and Israel. Indonesia is fifteenth, ahead of Israel. On the other hand, Israel is ahead of Pakistan (seventeenth place), North Korea (eighteenth place), and Sweden (thirty-first place). Dead last, in 136^th place, was Bhutan. The website says it is in the midst of compiling the 2019 military power rankings.

“It was the third year in a row that Israel fell in the site’s ranking, falling one spot from the previous year and down five spots when it ranked 11th in 2016,” noted the Jerusalem Post. “Iran, meanwhile, climbed to 13th in 2018 from 20th in 2017.”

How exactly does GlobalFirepower calculate these scores?

“The finalized Global Firepower ranking utilizes over 55 individual factors to determine a given nation's PowerIndex ('PwrIndx') score,” says the website. “The unique, in-house formula allows for smaller, more technologically-advanced, nations to compete with larger, though lesser-developed, ones. Modifiers (in the form of bonuses and penalties) are applied to further refine the list. A perfect PwrIndex score is 0.0000 which is realistically unattainable in the scope of the GFP formula.”

The website further explains that the scores are adjusted by a variety of modifiers. For example, “ranking does not rely solely on total number of weapons available to any one country but rather focuses on weapon diversity.”

The scores also take into account “First World, Second World, and Third World statuses,” while NATO nations are awarded a “slight bonus due to the theoretical sharing of war-making resources.” Other modifiers include geography, industry, natural resources, manpower and financial strength.”

Some politicians will no doubt be relieved to learn that “current political / military leadership is NOT taken into account.” But most important is the factor that in theory should give Israel a decisive edge over Iran, or at least for the time being.

“Nuclear stockpiles are NOT taken into account but recognized / suspected nuclear powers are given a bonus,” GlobalFirepower says. Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, while Iran has tried to develop them in the past, and may or may not be close to developing them now, depending on whom you ask.

While GlobalFirepower.com’s formula is opaque, it is likely that the website is using many traditional factors to calculate its scores. For example, Iran’s population is listed at 82 million, with potential military manpower of 47 million, while Israel has a population of 8.3 million, of which 3.6 million are available for military service. Iran has almost 100 times Israel’s landmass and much, much more oil. Iran is listed having more than 900,000 active-duty and reserve military personnel versus Israel’s 615,000, though Iran has fewer tanks and aircraft.

What does all this prove? First, as anyone who peruses defense websites soon learns, rankings of military power are often so arbitrary that they become useless at best and ridiculous at worst. But more important is the arbitrary nature of these indexes, which tend to ignore the conditions that govern military power.

For example, while Iran has a larger military, a bigger population and more military manpower, that wouldn’t help much in a conflict with Israel, which doesn’t share a border with Iran, which in turn means that big Iranian armies have nowhere to go (these factors were important in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, where the two nations were adjacent).

HIMARS Could Be A Game-changer In The Philippines Fight Against China These missiles could settle the South China Sea. by Michael Peck

“Absent an abrupt change in foreign policy outlook by President Duterte, it is unlikely the Philippines would acquire HIMARS in the near future,” says Brian Harding, an Asian security expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In addition to the price tag, Duterte would likely find HIMARS to be too provocative vis-à-vis China.”

The United States and the Philippines have been discussing whether the Filipino military should buy the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), a multiple rocket launcher used by the United States and other nations, according to the South China Morning Post.

“If deployed, the long-range, precision-guided rockets fired by the system would be able to strike Chinese man-made islands on reefs in the Spratly chain,” the newspaper said. HIMARS is a lighter, more mobile six-barreled version of the U.S. Army’s M270 multiple rocket launch system (MLRS). It can shoot rockets out to 70 kilometers (43 miles) and GPS-guided ballistic missiles out to 300 kilometers (186 miles).

However, funding from the cash-strapped Philippines is a hurdle. “The two sides have been unable to reach a deal because HIMARS could be too expensive for Manila given its tight defense budget,” said the newspaper.

Exactly how much does HIMARS cost? Manufacturer Lockheed Martin refused to give cost estimates, instead referring queries to the U.S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Command, which didn’t respond to questions from TNI. The cost of HIMARS is split between the launcher itself and separate contracts for various munitions including guided and unguided rockets, the longer-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, and weapons under development such as extended-range rockets and the Precision Strike Missile.

Some estimates put the cost of a HIMARS guided rocket at $100,000 to $200,000 apiece, or an ATACMS at more than $700,000 apiece. Another clue is that Poland recently signed a $414 million contract for eighteen launchers plus support and training. With the 2019 Philippines defense budget at only $3.4 billion, a big HIMARS purchase would be a strain.

Yet HIMARS is still a cheaper option than, say, a $1.4 million Tomahawk cruise missile. And the Philippines had already had a taste of HIMARS. The weapon was deployed there by U.S. Marines in 2016 during the joint U.S.-Philippines Balikatan exercises. Collin Koh Swee Lean, a Singaporean defense analyst, told the South China Morning Post that “there were two possible locations for the system: Palawan province in the Philippines and Thitu, or Zhongye in Chinese—the largest island held by Manila in the disputed Spratly chain. From Palawan, HIMARS could launch a missile at its maximum range to hit China’s man-made island at Mischief Reef, Koh said. But Thitu island would also be vulnerable to PLA air and missile strikes because it is only about 22 kilometers (14 miles) from China-occupied Subi Reef, and within striking range of missiles originating from the Paracel Islands and Hainan.”

The cheaper price tag of HIMARS compared to other weapons does make it attractive. “The idea of purchasing HIMARS systems may be one of the few viable options in response to China's artificial islands and continuing and increasingly provocative actions in the SCS [South China Sea],” says Jay Batongbacal, director of the Philippines-based Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

Yet Batongbacal does not see a sale any time soon. “The Philippines is probably not yet in a position to make a purchase,” he told The National Interest. “It is also not likely to arm its own possessions significantly, for fear of Chinese reaction.”

American experts agree. “Absent an abrupt change in foreign policy outlook by President Duterte, it is unlikely the Philippines would acquire HIMARS in the near future,” says Brian Harding, an Asian security expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In addition to the price tag, Duterte would likely find HIMARS to be too provocative vis-à-vis China.”

But Harding believes this could change. “Just as Duterte has dramatically reoriented Philippine foreign policy, there could again be an abrupt change with a new president in 2022. A new president could also seek to accelerate the implementation of the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which could potentially provide an avenue for the United States to deploy systems such as HIMARS in the Philippines.”

Indeed, perhaps the more interesting possibility isn’t Philippines-owned rockets, but American-operated rockets on Philippines soil. “I think observers shouldn’t just think about capabilities that the Philippines could acquire on its own,” Harding warns. “EDCA provides a vehicle for the United States to deploy its own platforms on a rotational basis, which could be a way to potentially move high-end capabilities into the region, if agreed to by leaders.”

The U.S. Military's Amphibious Workhorse: Grumman HU-16 Albatross The large twin-radial engine amphibious flying boat was developed after the Second World War for the U.S. Navy and the first prototype flew in October 1947. by Peter Suciu

When is a seabird a workhorse? 

When it is a U.S. military aircraft—and in this case, workhorse could aptly describe the Grumman HU-16 Albatross, a versatile amphibious utility aircraft that was designed so that it could also operate in snow and ice conditions with skis. It had a crew of three or four and could carry up to ten passengers.

The large twin-radial engine amphibious flying boat was developed after the Second World War for the U.S. Navy and the first prototype flew in October 1947. Gruman had previous experience developing amphibious aircraft, such as the Gruman JSF-6 Duck, and created essentially a larger version of the flying boat concept.

The United States Air Force also saw a potential and ordered a quantity of the aircraft, designated the SA-16As, for air-sea rescue operations.

The Grumman HU-16 Albatross was powered by two Wright R-1820s engines, which each provided 1,425 horsepower giving the plane a maximum speed of 250 mph. It had a range of 1,650 miles and a ceiling of 21,500 feet.

During the Korean War, the SA-16 was used for combat rescue and gained a reputation as a rugged and reliable seaworthy aircraft. In total Grumman delivered 297 A models to the Air Force and most saw use with the Air Rescue Service, which was first established in 1946 before being re-designated as the Air Force's Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (ARRS) in 1966.

The designation of the airplane was changed to HU-16 in 1962.

In the meantime, Grumman developed an improved version that increased the wingspan by 16 and a half feet and installed larger aileron and tail surfaces. Many of the A models were later converted to this B configuration.

The HU-16 saw extensive combat service during the Vietnam War when it was used by the Air Force's ARRS, while the U.S. Navy employed modified HU-16C/D as search and rescue (SR) aircraft from coastal naval air stations including bases in Guam and Cuba. The HU-16 was also operated by the United States Coast Guard as a coastal and long-range open ocean SAR aircraft until it was supplanted by the newer HU-25 Guardian and HC-130 Hercules aircraft.

The Albatross was also an example of a military-designed aircraft that made a transition to the civilian world. In the mid-1960s the U.S. Department of the Interior used a small number of the flying boats in goodwill flights in the Pacific. The aircraft proved perfect when the U.S. government helped establish the Trust Territory Airlines to serve the islands of Micronesia before adequate runways were built on the islands.

In a strange twist of fate, the Albatross was also crucial in developing Row 44's satellite-based, in-flight Wi-Fi system that is now commonly used on modern commercial airliners. The company's founder, Gregg Fialcowitz, had reportedly become frustrated by the lack of Internet during his frequent business travel and saw the potential to provide a satellite delivery of the Internet to aircraft. He worked with David Cummings, a corporate pilot, who happened to have restored a Grumman HU-16B, which was used in the testing and development of the system that is now widely used on commercial aircraft.

The same plane that helped save many lives via rescue missions and has left its impact in other ways. It wasn't speedy but it was reliable, which is why even today the Albatross remains a workhorse with Air Forces around the world.