Have we got a deal for you!
Australia will purchase a fourth MQ-4C Triton drone for maritime surveillance, despite the US Navy recently halting production of the unmanned platform which critics warn is vulnerable to enemy attack.. The purchase is part of a $1.5 billion boost to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) that also includes upgrades to the existing P-8A Poseidon fleet.
The P-8A Poseidon is a long-range maritime patrol aircraft that can be used for a variety of missions, including anti-submarine warfare, maritime strike, and intelligence collection. The upgrades to the Poseidon fleet will enhance its capabilities in all of these areas.
The MQ-4C Triton is a high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft that can fly for more than 24 hours at altitudes exceeding 50,000 feet. The Triton is equipped with a variety of sensors, including radar, electro-optical/infrared cameras, and signals intelligence sensors.
The Triton will provide the RAAF with a persistent surveillance capability in Australia's maritime region. This is particularly important in the northern approaches to Australia, where China is increasing its military activity.
The acquisition of the Triton has been criticized by some analysts, who argue that it is too expensive and vulnerable to attack. They say that theTriton is aa controversial platform. The US Navy has halted production of the Triton, and some analysts have criticized the Australian government for continuing to invest in the program. Former Australian defence official Marcus Hellyer has described Labor's decision to persevere with the Triton as "strange".
He predicts the program will undoubtedly cost more in both acquisition and sustainment than originally forecast.
"Rather than getting in deeper and throwing good money after bad do we actually reconsider the whole thing and get out while we still can?" says Dr Hellyer, now with Strategic Analysis Australia.
"We've been pursing this capability for well over 20 years, we've been involved with the US on this program in various ways and we've been contributing financially to this program for a very long time.
"The question was always would we continue and get the full six or seven or would we get a smaller number but if we got a smaller number would it actually be a viable capability?"
The Triton is expected to be based at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory but operated remotely from RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia.
The Australian government has defended its decision to purchase the Triton, arguing that it is necessary to protect Australia's maritime interests. The Triton will provide the RAAF with a valuable capability, but it remains to be seen whether the program will be successful in the long term. However, the Triton acquisition is the right decision for Australia when combined with other steps being taken by the government, says Defence Industry minister Pat Conroy.
"I think this is good technology that gives us that persistent longer-range presence, that complements the best maritime surveillance aircraft in the world in the P-8 Poseidon and investments we're making in space awareness," he said.
Under the previous Coalition government, an initial order was made for three of the high altitude long endurance (HALE) aircraft with plans to eventually buy up to seven, but none have yet been delivered to Australia. We’ve been engaged in this program in one form or another since 2006 (the history is set out in the Australian National Audit Office’s Major projects report). Defence has been planning to acquire six or seven aircraft. To date the Australian government has approved the acquisition of three aircraft with a budget of $2.777 billion. But none are yet in service despite the expenditure of $983 million to 30 June 2023
According to the Biden administration's latest Department of Defense budget, the Triton program will be terminated with production ceasing in 2024.
The halted production will leave the US Navy with a total of 22 aircraft, well short of its earlier target of 70. In its FY2020 budget the Trump administration implemented a Triton ‘production pause’ for FY2021 and FY2022. However, despite the uncertainty, the Australian government approved acquisition of its third aircraft, in part to help the US Navy and Northrop Grumman keep the production line ticking over until the US government could restart the program.
It’s not clear why the US reduced the program so dramatically, but there have been numerous indications that it is unwilling to invest in expensive aircraft that are not survivable in the threat environments that they will need to operate in.
ASPI Senior Analyst Dr Malcolm Davis says "The MQ-4C is a great capability to provide maritime surveillance in uncontested airspace, but its not a credible platform to go into harms way. The money spent on that extra Triton could have been better spent on investment in long-range strike or satellite capability, or enhancements to IAMD."
According to the Australian National Audit Office’s most recent major projects report we won’t achieve initial operational capability until sometime between July 2025 and June 2026, or in other words, around 20 years after we embarked on this journey. Even before the president’s FY2025 budget was released, Australia’s final operational capability was scheduled to be between July 2030 and June 2031—that’s around 25 years after we started.
As Dr Marcus Hellyer, Head of Research at Strategic Analysis Australia says, "we simply can’t afford to pursue programs that last for decades before they deliver any capability—particularly ones in the rapidly changing fields of autonomous systems and surveillance sensors. Australia’s loss of strategic warning time doesn’t afford us that luxury. Moreover, the world changes over such extended periods.
"The contested operating environments are now too dangerous for something like Triton, but other systems can perform surveillance in uncontested environments more affordably. For example, some of the roles that Triton was to perform can now be done cheaply and reliably by commercial satellite constellations. So twenty years down the track, it’s not clear there’s a place for Triton—even before we’ve gotten anything out of it."
Needless to say that Vanguard is one of the largest major shareholders of Northrop Grumman and together with BlackRock, the 2 currently own some 13%: larger than any other investor.
State Capture is possibly an appropriate term to use in this case.
Northrop Grumman is second only to Lockheed Martin in making political donations in the US, mostly to Republicans. Former Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems chief James G. Roche served as Secretary of the Air Force for two years under George W. Bush. Roche would eventually be nominated to head the Army, but withdrew his nomination among accusations of mismanaging a contract with Boeing and of failing to properly handle the Air Force sexual assault scandals of 2003. According to CorpWatch, "at least seven former officials, consultants, or shareholders of Northrop Grumman" have held posts "in the Bush administration...including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Pentagon Comptroller Dov S. Zakheim, and Sean O'Keefe, director of NASA." Wolfowitz and Libby have both since left the government amid scandals.
Northrop Grumann ("NG") engages third-party lobbying firms in jurisdictions where it has interests. For example, in South Australia it works with lobbying firm CMAX Communications.
Seems to me that the probity checks on NG have been somewhat absent given that, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Northrop was the target of several high-profile criminal and civil cases.
In 1995, Robert Ferro, an employee for TRW Inc., a company NG acquired in 2002, discovered that satellite components manufactured for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) were faulty and likely to fail in operation. TRW suppressed Ferro's report of the problem and hid the information from the USAF, even after a satellite in space equipped with the faulty components experienced serious anomalies. Ferro later sued NG in federal court under the federal whistle-blower law.
In 1999, the company was sued for knowingly giving the Navy defective aircraft. This suit sought $210 million in damages. Ten years later, on April 2, 2009, NG agreed to pay $325 million to settle the suit. Ferro was awarded $48.8 million of the settlement. Northrop Grumman stated, "it believed that TRW had 'acted properly under its contracts' and that the company had substantive defenses against the claims."
In 2001, federal investigators probed NG for fraud of more than $100 million, systematic overcharging for radar jammers and other high-tech devices used in the B-1 bomber, the F-15 fighter and the B-2 Stealth bomber. In 2003, the company was sued for overcharging the U.S. government for space projects in the 1990s. Northrop Grumman paid $111.2 million to settle out of court.
From August 25 to September 2, 2010, Virginia's computer system operated by NG, under a $2.4 billion contract, experienced an outage which resulted in around 45,000 citizens not being able to renew their drivers licenses prior to their expiration. Computer systems for 26 of the state's 89 agencies were affected and Governor Bob McDonnell announced that some data may have been permanently lost. In 2010 Northrop Grumman apologized for the outage, and agreed to fund an investigation.
In 2012, controversy began over Northrop Grumman's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), when it missed its first deadline. Since then, the system has had a number of controversial developments. In 2016, a Director, Operational Test and Evaluation found a number of major faults with the system, concluding it was "neither mature nor stable".
U.S. State Department investigators found that Litton Industries, a subsidiary acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2000, had provided portions of source code used by guidance and navigation system interfaces aboard Air Force One to a company in Russia in 1998. Northrop Grumman agreed to pay a $15 million fine for 110 violations, occurring between September 1998 and November 1998, of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
Additionally, documents filed by the State Department state that between 1994 and 2003, Northrop Grumman failed to notify the U.S. State Department about the computer guidance systems also being transferred to Angola, Indonesia, Israel, China, Ukraine and Yemen.
NG has numerous ties to nuclear weaponry, but also has had past ties to controversial weapons systems, such as anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions, and depleted uranium rounds through the company’s wholly owned subsidiary Orbital ATK Inc.
A further litany of human rights concerns with NG was outlined in a paper sent to NG shareholders in 2021 by a Catholic group called Investor Advocates for Social Justice.
A history of NG's corruption is mentioned in this video.
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