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Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Can The OA-1K Skryraider II Actually Be Useful In A Pacific Fight?
Questions about the future of the U.S. Air Force's new OA-1K Skyraider II continue to swirl amid an ongoing shift toward preparing for potential peer conflicts and away from counter-insurgency and other low-intensity operations for which the special operations light attack aircraft was originally envisioned. Whether or not the program could be axed as part of a Pentagon-wide realignment of priorities under President Donald Trump is now also a topic of great interest. A high-ranking Air Force official recently talked at length about the OA-1K, including what roles it could play in a future high-end fight in the Pacific, with TWZ's Howard Altman, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss planning issues. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) took delivery of the first Skyraider II in April and expects to eventually receive 75 of the aircraft in total. The two-seat, single-engine turboprop's official nickname, which is a callback to the famed A-1 Skyraider that U.S. forces flew during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, was announced in February. 'The way that the OA-1K will look on day one is not how probably the OA-1K will look on day 1,000,' the Air Force official said. 'As we field it, it will continue to iterate based on the requirements that our supported forces articulate to us. We're intimately involved with all of those forces, even as we speak, on shaping the initial and then also the growing requirements that I'm sure that we will find for that platform going forward.' The OA-1K 'was designed to be very flexible. A big element of the platform is, again, this notion of modularity, [and] open systems architecture,' they continued. 'What that does for us is, on a given mission, you might put certain types of capabilities [on the aircraft] – those could be ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] capabilities, … strike capabilities – you may have more of one than the other, depending on the day or the mission requirement of the supported force. But then the next day, that may change, and you can rapidly swap out what the capabilities are of the platform on a given mission.' The original core vision for the OA-1K was an aircraft capable of performing close air support, armed overwatch, and ISR missions, primarily in support of special operations forces, and while operating in permissive airspace. SOCOM's Armed Overwatch program, which resulted in the Skyraider II, kicked off in 2020, but leveraged many years of other abortive light attack aircraft programs and related test and evaluation efforts that had been heavily driven by the demands of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) era. Another key goal for the Armed Overwatch program was to help free up tactical combat jets, bombers, and other aircraft that had been employed in these roles in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq for more demanding and/or higher-priority missions, as well as reduce costly wear and tear on those platforms from constant and of short-endurance sorties. A light attack aircraft like the OA-1K would also have the benefit of being able to be pushed forward with a minimal logistics footprint to far-flung locations, even ones with next to no infrastructure. This, in turn, would put them closer to operating areas, reducing travel time and increasing on-station availability, all without the need for already heavily in-demand tanker support. However, the SOCOM selected the OA-1K as the winner of the Armed Overwatch competition in 2022, by which time the U.S. military had withdrawn from Afghanistan and the larger pivot to preparing for high-end operations, with a particular eye toward the Pacific, was in full swing. U.S. forces expect to face increasingly far more capable and longer-ranged air defenses in any large-scale conflict, especially in the region against China. The Air Force has explicitly warned about the potential threat of anti-air missiles able to reach targets up to 1,000 miles away emerging in the coming decades. This, in turn, has already called into question the relevance of the Skyraider II, as well as other special operations aircraft more tailored toward lower-end contingencies. So 'how could we support them [friendly forces] if it's in the Pacific or anywhere else? The OA-1K certainly has some roles and missions that can [provide] support there. And then in a large-scale combat operation, we are looking at, in partnership with other components of SOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command], what are some of the things that it could do,' they added. 'Can it employ air-launched effects, at range, at standoff, in a flexible way that would provide value?' 'Launched effect' is a catch-all that the U.S. military uses to refer broadly to uncrewed aerial systems that can be launched from air, ground, and maritime platforms, and be configured as one-way attackers or to perform other non-kinetic missions, including electronic warfare, ISR, and signal relay. The term reflects increasingly blurry lines between multiple categories of aerial systems, especially traditional cruise missiles and long-range kamikaze drones. The Air Force official that TWZ spoke to did not elaborate on what kinds of 'launched effects' the OA-1K might carry in the future, but there is a growing array of relevant designs already in various stages of development within the U.S. military, as well as by private industry. SOCOM also has a Small Cruise Missile (SCM) program, primarily intended to provide new standoff strike capability for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship, but that could be applicable to other platforms like the Skyraider II. The AC-130J is another AFSOC platform facing questions about its relevance in future high-end fights. In 2023, L3Harris, the prime contractor for the Skyraider II, also said it had modeled potential loadouts for the aircraft that included AGM-84 Harpoons and AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Ranges (JASSM-ER), according to National Defense Magazine. The AGM-84 and AGM-158B are traditional air-launched anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, respectively. L3Harris had also done that modeling work independently of its contracts with SOCOM. The aforementioned SCM program and others like it within the U.S. military are also heavily focused on offering lower-cost alternatives to munitions like the Harpoon and JASSM-ER. L3Harris has put forward GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) and GBU-53/B StormBreakers, also known as Small Diameter Bomb IIs (SDB II), as potential future armament options for the OA-1K. The GBU-39/B and GBU-53/B both offer a degree of standoff capability, and the ability to engage static and moving targets over dozens of miles. Otherwise, the prospective loadouts that have been put forward for the OA-1K to date align with the original lower-intensity mission focus and center on a mix of non-standoff precision munitions. These include AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) laser-guided 70mm rockets, and 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bombs. Pods to allow the Skyraider II to launch stores from Common Launch Tubes (CLT), which could include precision-guided missiles and bombs, as well as air-launched drones, have been put forward, as well. The OA-1K will also be able to carry podded sensor systems. For the Skyraider II, launched effects with standoff range could open up additional possibilities when it comes to operational employment of the aircraft. 'The next point that I would make there is that's where we start to get into things like Adaptive Airborne Enterprise. We get into enhanced precision effects,' the Air Force official we talked to said in response to a question regarding the future of the AC-130J that they also said was relevant to the OA-1K. 'So this is where we start talking about our platforms. And we are putting capabilities on them that now make them more flexible and enable them to provide support to the joint force and SOF [special operations forces] … in a number of environments.' Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) is an overarching term for concepts of operations that AFSOC has been refining for some years now that focus on increasing deployability by reducing personnel and logistics footprints, as well as the collaborative employment of capabilities. A2E work so far has focused heavily on the MQ-9 Reaper drone, but the Air Force has made clear in the past that the concept extends to other aerial platforms, crewed and uncrewed, as well as friendly ground and maritime forces. Another key element of A2E has been exploring how capabilities can be employed across areas of increasing risk, as highlighted in the graphic below. This is particularly relevant for a platform like the OA-1K, which could deploy launched effects from permissive airspace, but to support operations in adjacent higher-risk areas. Skyraider IIs could potentially be pushed to forward operating locations where they could conduct similar operations from within the bubble of friendly defenses. Similar concepts of operations have been put forward by the U.S. Army and other branches of the U.S. military in recent years with a particular eye toward ensuring the relevance of less survivable platforms in higher-end conflicts. The OA-1K's deployability and small operational footprint could help make it difficult for enemy forces to target, in general. The aircraft might also be useful for providing more localized force protection and surveillance around forward operating locations like island outposts, which could include counter-drone patrols. In particular, the APKWS II rockets that are expected to be in the Skyraider II's arsenal are already proving themselves to be valuable air-to-air weapons against drones, and their capabilities in this regard are set to expand further. U.S. Fighter aircraft shoot down Iran-backed Houthi one-way-attack drones with AGR-20 FALCO Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) Laser Guided 2.75" Rockets.#HouthisAreTerrorists — U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 19, 2025 The high-ranking Air Force official also stressed to TWZ that SOCOM and AFSOC still expect to be tasked with the kinds of lower-intensity missions and crisis response scenarios in environments with more permissive airspace that led to the acquisition of the OA-1K in the first place. 'We still have this requirement on the SOCOM side of the house to do counter-terrorism, crisis response, counter-VEO ['violent extremist organization missions]. And really, that was the notion of the OA-1K originally, [it] was a cost-effective platform in the counter-violent extremism environment,' they said. 'So that still is a relevant mission set.' They also highlighted how continuing to engage with allies and partners in the Pacific region on lower-intensity fights where the OA-1K is relevant remains an important way of building military-to-military relationships that could extend into a future major conflict. 'Now you start to think about competition and building relationships with allies and partners. And there's all the lead-up to something someday, where there's just this notion of strengthening relationships,' they explained. 'How do you train with partner nations? Many of them still have their own counter-VEO concerns, they also have their own counter-terrorism/crisis response concerns. How could we support them if it's in the Pacific or anywhere else?' The Air Force has also raised the possibility of utilizing OA-1K's closer to home, including in support of border security missions. Since January, President Donald Trump's administration has significantly expanded U.S. military support to civilian law enforcement agencies along the southern border with Mexico, as well as surrounding bodies of water. The Skyraider II would offer a lower-cost alternative to the MQ-9 Reapers that have been supporting those operations, as well as augment higher-end ISR platforms now in use, or even supplant them in more limited ways. They could also supplement U.S. Customs and Border Protection ISR aircraft. There are additional questions surrounding the OA-1K beyond just AFSOC plans to employ the aircraft. The Air Force's stated plan is to leverage personnel and other resources from the divestment of U-28A Draco and MC-12 turboprop-powered crewed ISR aircraft to help field the Skyraider II. At the same time, the service, along with SOCOM, insists that the OA-1K is not intended as a direct replacement for those aircraft. SOCOM and AFSOC have faced criticism, including from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, over how these force structure decisions were made and the potential for resulting gaps in ISR capacity. 'Right now, our focus, really, at this point, is ensuring that the OA-1K is on time,' the Air Force official told us when asked about any plans for a more direct replacement for the U-28As and MC-12s. The Pentagon's top leadership under President Trump is also promising a major realignment of priorities in the proposed defense budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year. This is already having major impacts on various programs, especially within the U.S. Army, and other efforts across the services could be staring down major cuts, if not outright cancellation. 'I really don't have any info for you there,' the Air Force official told us when asked about any concerns that the OA-1K could be on the chopping block, especially over questions about its future relevance in high-end conflicts. 'I, frankly, don't know, and I don't have any indication that the program is going to get canceled. We've got our birds that continue to deliver. We're focused on, how do we get the crews trained? How do we get it outfitted to be able to make its first push down range to meet SOCOM requirements? And, you know, there's all kinds of speculation about budgets and whatnot out there, but right now, our focus is really not on that. It's about fielding the combat capability.' In the meantime, the Air Force is looking at launched effects with standoff range and other new capabilities, as well as concepts of operations to go with them, as potential paths to help keep its new OA-1K light attack aircraft relevant in various contexts going forward. Contact the author: joe@
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Posts Crackpot Signalgate Conspiracy: ‘WHAT ARE THE ODDS'
President Donald Trump boosted a vague conspiracy targeting the CEO of NPR, who also happens to sit on the board of Signal, as his administration continues to grapple with the fallout of a major intelligence leak on the messaging app. Trump reposted Sunday an X user's claim of a 'Signal scandal': 'Katherine Maher, the leftist NPR CEO, is currently the Chair of the Board of Signal!' an account called Publius wrote. 'WHAT ARE THE ODDS?' Publius published a series of posts detailing Maher's professional background, listing her membership in the State Department's Foreign Affairs Policy Board and her stints at the National Democratic Institute, World Bank, and UNICEF. 'She's donated to Democrats like Biden. And, of course, just happens to be the Chair of the Board of Signal Foundation,' the user wrote, calling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to probe what policies Maher pushed. The idea appears to have taken hold in conservative circles as well. On Friday, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked Texas Rep. Pat Fallon, who questioned Maher in a congressional hearing on NPR: 'What are the odds that Katherine Maher, the leftist NPR CEO, is on the board of Signal as well?' It's unclear what the significance of Maher's presence on the Signal Foundation board is. Neither Trump nor any of the conspiracy's high-profile proponents have laid out a theory and appear to have settled on merely pointing out her seat on the board. Trump earlier this weekend admitted that he was clueless about Signal, which became the site of a massive leak after national security officials discussed details of a military strike in Yemen after The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently added to their group chat. 'I have no idea what Signal is. I don't care what Signal is,' Trump told NBC on Saturday. 'All I can tell you is it's just a witch hunt, and it's the only thing the press wants to talk about, because you have nothing else to talk about. Because it's been the greatest 100-day presidency in the history of our country.' The president railed against criticism and media coverage of what has been dubbed 'Signalgate' in a Truth Social post on Sunday, branding it 'the radical left's witch hunt on the never-ending Signal story.' 'They just don't stop - Over and over they go!' he wrote. 'This story and narrative is so old and boring.' A Pentagon-wide advisory issued days after Goldberg was added to the group chat—and another one issued as far back as 2023—warned against using Signal for discussing nonpublic official information, according to NPR. Signal has since clarified that the 'vulnerabilities' referred to in the Pentagon memo did not lie within the app, but in phishing scams targeting its users. This isn't the first time Signal has been the subject of scrutiny. In 2024, tech mogul and now DOGE chief Elon Musk claimed 'there are known vulnerabilities with Signal that are not being addressed' in response to an article raising questions about Maher's membership on the Signal board. This prompted Signal president Meredith Whittaker to respond: 'We don't have evidence of extant vulnerabilities, and haven't been notified of anything… We've put a lot of thought into making sure our structure and development practices let people validate our claims, instead of just taking our word for it."
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
War Plans Leak Reveals The Shocking Incompetence Of The Trump Administration
New details in the case of top U.S. officials messaging each other about war plans — and accidentally including a journalist in the conversation — reveal the breathtaking incompetence of President Donald Trump's administration just two months into his new term. The Atlantic on Wednesday published the full message chain from a Signal group chat that themagazine's editor-in-chief was inadvertently invited to join earlier this month. The messages, which The Atlantic first reported on Monday, discussed plans for strikes in Yemen, along with other sensitive national security matters. The conversation gives a glimpse into how lax some of the nation's top officials were while discussing those matters. 'We are currently clean on [operational security],' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted the group, which included several officials and a number that wasn't known to him: The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from this national security failure: The Trump administration's decision to use a third-party messaging app like Signal flies in the face of basic operational security measures. Even before Monday's bombshell report, a Pentagon-wide email reportedly went out last week explicitly warning against using Signal for communications. 'A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application,' the email began. The email added that Russian hacking groups were targeting 'Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest.' But in this case, Russian hackers had nothing to do with the leaks: The Trump administration did that all on its own. After Goldberg published his initial story saying Trump's national security adviser, Michael Waltz, accidentally added him to the Signal group, Trump's team pushed back on the claim that they ever discussed war plans. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday that 'No 'war plans' were discussed' and that 'No classified material was sent to the thread.' And on Wednesday, after The Atlantic published messages in which officials discussed the strike on Yemen, Hegseth defended himself on social media. 'So, let's me get this straight,' Hegseth wrote on X. 'The Atlantic released the so-called 'war plans' and those 'plans' include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.' 'Those are some really shitty war plans,' Hegseth added. But the former Fox News anchor and current defense secretary had sent some of the most revelatory messages of all in the group chat titled 'Houthis PC small group,' including a detailed timeline of the attack plans. More from Hegseth's texts: 1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package) 1345: 'Trigger Based' F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)' 1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package) 1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier 'Trigger Based' targets) 1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched. MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline) We are currently clean on OPSEC Godspeed to our Warriors. As The Atlantic pointed out in its story on Wednesday, it could have been catastrophic for U.S. troops if those messages had gotten into the wrong hands. Just 31 minutes after Hegseth wrote to the group, U.S. warplanes launched to carry out their attack. More from The Atlantic: If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic. As more information has come to light, the Trump administration has remained remarkably consistent on one point: It wasn't their fault. While testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe claimed that using Signal was a policy of President Joe Biden's administration. 'That is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration,' Ratcliffe said. But former Biden officials stressed Signal was never allowed on their government phones. 'We were not allowed to have any messaging apps on our work phones,' one former top national security official told HuffPost on the condition of anonymity. 'And under no circumstances were unclassified messaging apps allowed to be used for transmission of classified material. This is misdirection at its worst.' In an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, Waltz suggested that Goldberg may have intentionally infiltrated the group. 'You've got somebody else's number on someone else's contact, so of course I didn't see this loser in the group,' Waltz said. 'It looked like someone else. Now whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical means is something we're trying to figure out.' Waltz couldn't seem to answer directly how Goldberg got on the text thread, leading Ingraham to say, 'That's disturbing.' 'That's why we've got the best technical minds, right?' Waltz responded. 'And that's where ... I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where it said one person and then it said a different number.' As Trump officials continue to point fingers at everyone but themselves, some Republican lawmakers have acknowledged the staggering incompetence taking place. 'Sounds like a huge screwup. I mean, is there any other way to describe it?' Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters on Monday. 'I don't think you should use Signal for classified information.' And Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) may have summed it up best in his response: 'Somebody fucked up.'
The Guardian
25-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Pentagon warned staffers against using Signal before White House chat leak
The Pentagon recently warned its employees against using Signal, the encrypted messaging app, due to a technical vulnerability, an NPR report reveals. The report comes one day after the Atlantic published a story detailing how top national security officials, including the US vice-president and US defense secretary, had accidentally added a journalist to a Signal group chat, which revealed plans for military strikes in Yemen. The Atlantic's revelations sparked widespread outrage at the security lapse and sent ripples of shock at the breach through diplomatic circles across the world. However, Trump administration officials have tried to play down the sensitivity of the information exposed to the journalist. But according to a Pentagon 'OPSEC special bulletin' seen by NPR reporters and sent on 18 March, Russian hacking groups may exploit the vulnerability in Signal to spy on encrypted organizations, potentially targeting 'persons of interest'. Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calls. It is also an 'open source' application, meaning the app's code is open to independent review for any vulnerabilities. The app is typically used as a secure method to communicate. The Pentagon-wide memo said 'third party messaging apps' like Signal are permitted to be used to share unclassified information, but they are not allowed to be used to send 'non-public' unclassified information. In a statement to NPR, a spokesperson for Signal said they were 'not aware of any vulnerabilities or supposed ones that we haven't addressed publicly'. The Atlantic's story, in which editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg describes the Signal back and forth between senior Trump administration officials, led to widespread ridicule online, pointing to top officials' lack of candor when discussing military strikes, and the original mistake in adding the journalist to the sensitive chat. The chat included top-level officials within the Trump administration, including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA director John Ratcliffe and others. Goldberg did not release the entirety of the messages in the article. During an appearance on a liberal podcast on Tuesday, Goldberg said he refuses to release the full thread, despite the Trump administration saying no classified information was shared. Trump dismissed the security leak as a 'glitch'. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Democratic politicians have robustly criticized the intelligence officials for their behavior. On Tuesday, during a Senate intelligence committee hearing, Democratic senators pressed the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, CIA head Ratcliffe, and FBI director Kash Patel, on the Signal chat leak. Goldberg received information regarding a forthcoming series of airstrikes on Houthi-controlled areas on 15 March, hours before the strikes took place. The Iran-backed Houthis said at least 31 people were killed as a result of the strikes. The US has been striking Houthi areas since November 2023, when, in retaliation for the US-backed Israeli attacks on Gaza, the Houthis began to target commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea.
