Tag Archives: P-8 Poseidon

Base for The P-8? The View from Malaysia

There’s been a fair bit of reporting regarding U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Greenert’s supposed remarks that Malaysia was offering a base in East Malaysia for deploying US Navy P-8s. Despite the U.S. Navy clarifying his remarks and saying they’ve been taken out of a context, the “base offer” seems too good a story for the U.S. media to pass on. Unfortunately many of the reports miss the dynamics of how U.S.-Malaysia military cooperation actually works, as to anyone familiar with such the notion of Malaysia allowing the United States to regularly stage surveillance missions out of its airbases is fairly laughable.

The fact is, except under the ambit of the Five Power Defence Arrangement, every military cooperation activity by Malaysia with a foreign country is agreed to on a case-by-case basis. So the United States would have to ask for approval for, at a minimum, every deployment with no guarantee that Malaysia will approve. It might be hard for those outside the military-defence circle here to accept but military cooperation activities between Malaysia and other countries can often ad-hoc based on opportunities provided by a deployment that takes place close to or in the vicinity of Malaysia. For instance, last year when the U.S.S. Boxer was transiting through the Malacca Straits with no engagement activity or exercises with Malaysia planned, the United States then decided to offer to fly Malaysian military and defence officials via V-22 Ospreys to the ship to see U.S. Marines capabilities onboard and engage in briefings and discussions, an offer which was then accepted. Similarly in June last year, when the French LPD F.N.S. Tonnerre was on a deployment tour in the region, France put in a request to Malaysia’s Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ) for an amphibious landing exercise but JFHQ declined, saying it was tied up with the ongoing CARAT 2013 exercise with the United States but referred the French to the Malaysian Army Headquarters who could accommodate the request.

800px-P_8A_touches_down_at_Pax_RiverThese two examples illustrate that Malaysia’s military cooperation activities with other countries are often on an as-and-when basis, rather than occurring as part of a highly formalized arrangement. As Malaysia wishes to preserve its ambit of neutrality, any activity has to be offered in such a manner so that Malaysia can decide whether to allow it based on such criteria and whether the timing is suitable – requests to do something during the fasting month of Ramadan or the Eid Fitri celebration period for instance are typically going to be denied.

Indeed at the Asian Naval Warfare Conference in Kuala Lumpur on September 10, which was open to the media although very little media showed up, Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, Commander U.S. 7th Fleet, directly addressed the matter:

“There’s no formal treaty with respect to Malaysia as far as military operations. In fact, we conduct operations with the Malaysian military on a case-by-case basis, when permission is granted. We have a lot of subject matter exchanges including in the maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft area so we’re doing more and more work in that regard, but that is not a formal policy document that says ‘hey, this is what we’re going to do and this is when we’re going to do it,’ this is really Admiral Kamarul [Vice Admiral Kamarulzaman, Deputy Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) Chief who was the senior RMN officer at the conference] and Robert Thomas saying, ‘hey what about this,’ and ‘can we get diplomatic clearance and permission to go work these exercises and this training.’”

And it’s not as if P-8s, or for that matter P-3 Orions, have not flown in and out of RMAF bases in the past in East Malaysia. Check out any Malaysian planespotting forum and you’ll see plenty of evidence, all related to cooperation activity and exercises between Malaysia and the United States. Part of the reason the United States is keen to have the P-8 Poseidon go to Malaysia is to highlight its capabilities to the Malaysian military given that Malaysia has long had an outstanding requirement for a long-range maritime patrol aircraft, and the P-8 could fill it.

Which raises another point, the ready assumption that anything to do with U.S. surveillance aircraft in East Malaysia has to be in regard to China. The fact is that Malaysia also has concerns on the state of security on the east coast of the state of Sabah in East Malaysia, which since last year’s incursion by Sulu separatists has also been plagued by cross-border kidnappings by various groups from the Philippines so a P-8 or P-3 going to East Malaysia may not necessarily be doing surveillance in an area where China operates. It’s not surprising that when the United States offers a chance for Malaysian personnel to fly aboard and see the P-8’s capabilities, Malaysia would opt to use the familiarization flight to gauge how it performs in an area where the country expects to do the bulk of its maritime surveillance mission.

p-8-weapons-bayStill, for some in the media it makes a nice story to say that Malaysia is offering the United States a base to stage P-8 flights as an attempt to counterbalance China and in response to Chinese maneuvers near East Malaysia and its waters. But the reality is that the Malaysian government hasn’t very much changed its position that it can resolve issues diplomatically with China. The New York Times report quoting “a senior Asian diplomat” saying that Malaysia has been in discussion with the United States on such has to be considered in context. There are some Asian countries that might see it as advantageous to draw a wedge between Malaysia and China, and thus tell the media something that may not be true for such a purpose. It also illustrates the danger of relying on a single source to determine the truth.

The Malaysian government is very much aware of how stretched the Malaysian Armed Forces are to cover the area in question. Allowing the United States to set up in East Malaysia for the purpose of monitoring China would only provoke the Chinese to step up their activities in the area, further taxing the RMN and RMAF, which makes it counter-productive, without mentioning the (domestic) political infeasibility. Unfortunately this type of context is seldom visible to those writing from Washington or New York, leading to narrative displaced from reality.

Dzirhan Mahadzir is a freelance defence journalist based in Malaysia and a regular writer on the Malaysian military and defence developments in Malaysia for a number of international defence publications groups including IHS Janes, Shephard Media, Mönch Publishing Group and Ventura Media.

Future Airwing Composition: Unmanned ISR

According to Defense News, the U.S. Navy’s inventory of manned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms – land-based P-3 Orion and EP-3 Aries – will be cut by more than a quarter over the next few years. The current consolidations are not the first time in recent history the Navy has trimmed ISR capability. As late as the 1990s, a typical carrier air wing deployed with a number of organic platforms capable of collecting intelligence, including tactical aircraft such as the F-14 with the Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS) and ES-3A Shadows for electronic signals intercept (ELINT). These aircraft were supplemented by a robust ground-based P-3 fleet along with numerous forward-looking infrared (FLIR)- and radar-capable helicopters on smaller cruisers and destroyers. Today’s remaining manned aircraft, such as the venerable, but still effective, P-3s are often found flying over-land missions in support of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. 

BAMS BAMS!
BAMS BAMS!

While the manned P-3 will eventually be replaced by Boeing’s manned P-8A Poseidon, the future of maritime ISR is unmanned.  In the near-term, tactical UAVs such as ScanEagle and Firescout will increase in numbers across the surface fleet.  Although their video can be transmitted over the horizon via satellite links from their launching ships, the shorter range of tactical UAVs generally makes them more appropriate for local reconnaissance operations. The MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) will soon be available to cover theater ISR missions, and eventually, as long-endurance, carrier-based drones are added to the fleet, the equation will tip even more in favor of unmanned ISR assets.

Carrier-based unmanned ISR aircraft will bring unprecedented capabilities to the U.S. Navy after over nine decades of naval aviation.  First, the aircraft will realize high sortie generation rates due to reduced maintenance and pilot proficiency requirements.  Because these aircraft will have much longer endurance than any manned aircraft, fewer planes will be needed to provide on-station ISR, which will be for a longer duration and can cover a larger area of land and sea. RQ-4 Global Hawks (BAMS’ brothers) are already demonstrating these ultra long-range patrols in the Middle East and Western Pacific.

Secondly, wear and tear on airframes will be greatly reduced compared to manned aircraft. Today when a carrier deploys, pilots must fly to remain proficient during the ship’s transit to and from an operating area. These transits can take over a month each way and the hours put on those aircraft during proficiency flights do not directly contribute to operations. The airframes of UAVs will only be flown operationally and not for training, extending their overall lifecycles. Additionally, because drones will not need to be tied to pilots in a squadron for training during transit, at least some of them could be cross-decked from a departing carrier to a new ship rotating into the operational theater (usually Central Command). Cross-decking will produce more operational sorties per aircraft than an equivalent number of manned planes, resulting in a smaller overall required UAV inventory.

Finally, unmanned aviation will eventually result in higher rates of fully mission capable aircraft than their manned counterparts on deployment. When a drone on a deployed aircraft carrier breaks down to the extent it requires depot-level repairs, it can be boxed up in the hangar and another drone can self-deploy within 24 hours from the United States or Europe to the carrier’s forward location to take its place. Drawing from a pool of “just-in-time” spares without worrying about ferry pilots, refueling, and other issues associated with short-range tactical aircraft will make CVNs that much more valuable. 

The Navy has arrived at a critical juncture towards deciding the future of unmanned aviation. The solicitation for the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program was delayed from last fall until sometime this spring.   Amy Butler at Aviation Week has discussed the Navy’s internal debates between aspects of survivability, endurance, payload capacity, and stealth. Yet, possibly the most important factor that should be considered in this program is affordability. The price points of the potential UCLASS competitors’ vehicles are publicly unknown, but the assumption might be made that generally a reduced-signature aircraft such as Northrop’s X-47B will drive higher program cost than a less stealthy platform like General Atomics’ Sea Avenger. Of course, as with any aircraft, total cost of ownership for UAVs includes training, maintenance, upgrades, and all ground-based infrastructure. In this area, the Sea Avenger also would likely save the Navy money because of the commonality of its ground control systems, communications networks, and other systems with the now-ubiquitous MQ-1 and MQ-9 aircraft flown by the Air Force and other agencies. If the Navy misfires on this program, at some point unmanned carrier aviation – or possibly carrier aviation writ large – could become unaffordable for the U.S. Navy. Wise choices up front in the UCLASS solicitation could pay big dividends decades from now.

This article was re-posted by permission from, and appeared in its original form at NavalDrones.com.