US-South Korea Rift? Of Tiger Eyes & Industrial Spies

ROKAF F-15K

In late November 2011, South Korea’s left-wing Hankyoreh newspaper reports that a combination of unauthorized examination of an F-15K’s Lockheed Martin “Tiger Eyes” IRST(InfraRed Search and Track) sensor, and concerns that a number of South Korean products contain copied technologies, have halted “strategic weapons exports” from the USA to South Korea. That reportedly includes the proposed RQ-4B Global Hawk deal.

The allegations are single-source, and written by Hankyoreh, but they are also quite detailed:

Rapid Fire 2011-11-23: Information Operations Doctrine

• Libyan lessons learned have made new Airbus A330 MRTT aerial tankers a bigger priority for France, alongside their aging C-135FRs. An interim contract for 5-7 A330 MRTT planes is now expected in 2013.

• Rheinmetall Defence and ADS GmbH successfully demonstrate their AMAP Active Defense Systems against an RPG-7 rocket, protecting a Fuchs wheeled vehicle. This technology is growing in importance on modern battlefields, because tandem-warhead missiles can beat armor defenses.

• Ghana’s 1st C295 light transport plane arrives.

• Distributed AWACS? Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have adopted the SABR AESA fighter radar into a Vigilance pod that can be carried on its future carriers’ AW101 Merlin Mk2 naval helicopters, and on RAF transport aircraft. Could more + cheaper + networked end up being better?

• Research nonprofit RAND investigates whether applying a rotational equipping strategy can help the US Army save money.

• The US Army War College updated its Information Operations (IO) primer [PDF], mostly to reflect the DoD’s latest strategic and organizational changes in the cyberspace realm. Recently US Army Lieutenant Colonel John A. Mowchan argued that maintaining ambiguity on the nature of the US military response in the digital domain would have benefits.

• US Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 1 (VMAQ-1) received the Phoenix Maintenance Award from DoD. The unit reduced the annual cost in ordered components almost by half while it supported 590 combat missions totaling 2,293 combat flight hours so far this year.

• US Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) compared the effects of the sequester [PDF] on spending by category. It is worth noting that DoD’s budget would still grow by 2% over the period between 2012 and 2021, but that’s in nominal terms and would mean a decline of more than 20% in real terms (i.e. with inflation factored in).

• Sappers of the 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion show a Bobcat dubbed “Minotaur” modified to detect IEDs in the video below: