What nation might be motivated to embarrass the US with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) overflights? How much defense and security do you get for a trillion dollars a year? Apparently not enough for things that matter.
UAVs are in the news bigly these days. There are no satisfactory answers or explanations to what is apparently just another “mystery of life” in a long line of them under the Biden administration.
The emerging facts that this has been going on for such a long time with seeming incuriosity on the part of our government is telling but is more an indictment of our entire President Eisenhower warned against “Military Industrial Complex” that includes a “kiss’n cousin” relationship between the government, the Pentagon and vendors. Anyone paying attention to these stories has to wonder what in tarnation is going on “round ‘tchere?”
I will follow up with a little tutorial on how much the US government has spent in the 21st century and the tail end of the 20th investing in counter cruise missile technology in a later article. Suffice it to say that starting in the 1990s as UAVs proliferated and cruise missiles became the new weapon of choice at scale, money was plentiful, and contractors lit upon the opportunity like flies to watermelon in the mid-day sun.
It was a big government focus area of the kind that becomes like a fad to be chased by the “big houses,” the Lockmart, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, relative newcomer General Atomics (Predator UAV) and other defense contractors in the business of military contracting.
These UAVs and cruise missiles are somewhat birds of the same feather when it comes to countermeasures and security protection, although they often have different flight profiles characterized by the cruise missile capability to ingress with near “nap of the earth capabilities” or terrain following, low level flight paths.
Not that UAVs can’t do that, there is simply a difference in mission profiles between an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform like the UAV-even when equipped with tactical missiles like the Hellfire-and the attack profile associated with things like cruise missiles such as the TLAM class (Tomahawk Land Attack Missile,) and a variety of foreign produced systems based on Russian or Chinese reuse.
Which is a topic I would like to opine on for several articles for dear reader, but a more pressing question today concerns who is responsible for-who would be motivated-to embarrass the US government by brazenly overflying the US with UAVs-with relative, seeming impunity?
I wrote an article a few years ago that exposed President Obama’s malfeasance in the area of foreign policy. Of apparent surprise-but not dismay-to 88% percent of Americans who were against any appeasement with Iran, the Obama administration reached out with an olive branch to the Iranians as early as 2009 in an overture that would culminate in the insane Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) effort.
Along the way to that idjiots pact Obama mimicked Pinocchio telling so many lies and mistruths to the American people via his talented fictional writer and story-teller Ben Rhodes, that in the end we had “mysteriously” re-empowered the Iranians by providing dollars for diplomacy, eliminating key sanctions crippling international commerce, and thrown our only reliable ally in the region-Israel-under the “enemy of our friend” bus.
All while the Iranians via the Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force led by Hassan Salmani (Qasem Soleimani) continued to perfect and export Improvised Explosive Devices that were killing American military forces and civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world.
The premise of my series was based on what Obama was willing to do in order to get-and keep-the Iranians at the negotiating table. I believe it was a lot-more than people would believe, and absolutely more than the American public knew/knows.
His “scandal free” administration had so many skeletons in the closet you could put on 100years of Halloween parties.
This story is somewhat of the culmination of what I believe Obama was capable of and it seems particularly timely in light of the question on everybody’s mind right now: Who is responsible for these drones?
This is one possible solution in the speculative “think box.” From the article…
We left off with a rundown of some of the elements that might be necessary if one wanted to undertake a dialogue with a mortal enemy on something deemed important enough to move heaven and earth over. This article is intended as the pointed-Joe Friday version-“nothing but the facts, ma’am.” So I want to clearly refer to the litany of events that apply and ask dear reader’s forgiveness that you might have to refer back to the series for the clarification or amplification for the details that were belabored earlier.
I walked through a number of steps one might take to “woo” a recalcitrant foe or enemy into engaging in a dialogue to settle a dispute. I believe it was clear that I was making a case that the Obama administration in many of these scandals did exactly what they wanted to do, lied about it, and when caught, lied some more, throughout coming up with false or twisted narratives that they-Ben Rhodes-then abused the LSMBTGA with-who was glad to do it-like a rented mule-to spread the lies to the American public.
I don’t want to assume dear reader and I were or are on the same page here over this issue. To clearly state what we are talking about, the issue that was important enough to warrant doing all the things I’ve outlined up to this point in the movie (in his presidency) wasn’t about Fast and Furious, IRS, OPM, ACA, DACA, Libya, Israel or even the Iran nuclear deal: it was anything President Barrack Hussein Obama-President Dona’linsky-decided to do to feed his ego.
So the bottom line up front, with naysayers in power in Iran led by the rabid “death to America,” anti-American and antisemitic death to Israel President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power, it would be pretty audacious and bodacious to bust a move attempting a dialogue on anything with an Iran regime that had consistently stated their aim to develop, achieve and maintain nuclear offensive weapons capability to balance out the regional power.
In their non-stop campaign against Israel and the west, nobody had to be convinced that should they develop such a capability, it would not be long before some terrorist suicide bomber would be strapped to such a device and act: they never relented or eased up on their stated position to annihilate Israel.
I’m talking step 5 in the progression I walked through in Part 9-somewhat the framework of a military style information operations campaign taking shape, where there are bait-and hooks-and switches-sometimes multiples of all-belt and suspenders approach-all choreographed toward an end state objective, often with one dramatic action needed to break the gordian knot. Particularly with total skeptics who would not be impressed by the first 4 steps they believed were owed to them already by the “great Satan.”
What could Dona’linsky do that would be so compelling as to get Iran to cooperate-or even to start talking “turkey”-and think about taking yes for an answer that would allow the US to proceed with the remainder of steps 1-4? Pay the 400 million, dialogue in a serious way with teams from both sides, slap Israel around a little bit, put things on or off the table-and get things moving on a timeline right after his reelection.
It would have to be something bold, audacious-bodacious-something unprecedented-eye-popping-unbelievable-incredible: hard to think of something that would be big enough…
A photo released by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) 9 December 2011 provided just such a big enough event and sent shockwaves through the government and the intelligence community (IC)-at least some in the IC. There in all its splendiferous glory-apparently intact-as if it had returned from a mission and landed back in Kandahar-only these were photos from Iran, depicting IRGC officers-was the Beast of Kandahar, a United States RQ-170 Sentinel drone that was reportedly captured nearly intact in Iran 5 December 2011…
The Iranians lost no time gaining the high ground touting propaganda about US violations of airspace, death to America, all evidence we were as bad as they said-and a bag of chips. While the west started to work on a strange narrative that was good for the American public-apparently-with the story likely a product of the fertile mind, approved and spread for their consumption by the WH talented novelist Ben Rhodes:
Despite those and other intelligence-gathering efforts – which are reported to include even surreptitiously installing radiation detectors at suspect sites in Tehran – the drone flights have apparently not yielded new evidence that would change conclusions by the United States and the United Nations that Iran stopped systematic nuclear weapons-related work in 2003.
Hmm, somewhat reminiscent of revisiting the narrative that led to the tinkling contest that occurred with the Central Intelligence Agency led Theater Ballistic Missile Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) and congress in 1995 intended to drive a narrative that would allow President Clinton to dramatically cut the Strategic Defense Initiative-National Missile Defense funding-so-called “Star Wars” effort by critics, to free up money for social-welfare funding.
Were the US and Israel seemingly spending inordinate amounts of time fretting over an Iran nuclear weapons program development effort-that had apparently been dormant since 2003: really? That seems hokey-or hinky-or pretty self-serving to a particular narrative that is impossible given continuous Iranian ballistic missile work.
Who knew the IC was so bad and that all that evidence of ongoing intent-myriad missile launches, rocket engine tests, space launch attempts, and alleged intercepted reports of foreign involvement in heavy water and weapons grade enrichment at many reported Iranian nuclear sites-Natanz, Parchin, Erdekan, Bushehr, Is/Esfehan-with Russia and North Korea interaction consistently reported–all some type of propaganda or information operations campaign all along!/? Hmmmmm.
And you ask the right question: how did the Iranians get this drone intact? It doesn’t look like it was shot down. The story states that it looks like the wings were reattached-which seems possible given that no stealth platform has pronounced wing-fuselage attachment radar cross section vulnerabilities like this one appears to have-but that is not typically a concern from any counter-surveillance platform that should not have LOS visibility to that “seam”-but it goes on to say:
The unmanned $6 million stealth drone is made by Lockheed Martin‘s Advanced Development Programs. It is the third high-profile loss of stealth technology: the first when a US F-117 jet fighter was shot down during the Kosovo conflict in 1999; the second when a stealth helicopter was damaged and largely destroyed in situ during the Bin Laden raid in Pakistan.
Just a few quick thoughts about the above. One is you can’t buy a stealthy briefcase for $6m. The non-stealthy Global Hawk that earlier transitioned to the US Air Force (at Milestone 2) from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had an objective cost of $10 million per vehicle (hahahaha,) but the first articles cost over 70 million for two vehicles, a mission control element and launch and recovery element: development costs were hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions.
Two is the old joke that being stealthy does not make it invisible. Even with modern X generation stealth manufacturing techniques perfected for air vehicles by a small-very small elite less than handful of manufacturers-these assets are vulnerable if detected along the carefully planned routes they fly intended to avoid the possibility. Their stealth capability is more a product of smart routing, profile presentation and broad beam avoidance than any other factors (plus electronic signature management.)
Three is the article has some good blather about Russian capability, but I know a lot of people who have ADT signs on their lawn who have no home alarm and no security service. Four is if you believe the Iranians have the capability to hack into and take over our UAVs of this alleged class, please read through my last parody article before making those comments out loud to anyone: although anything they can do, we can do better…
Five is that any military UAV operator worth their salt who figured out something squirrely was going on-like the jig being up-would figure out a way to have the drone self-destruct rather than let a hated enemy get a hold of it in this shape. And yes, of course receivers can be precision or barrage jammed to prevent handshake with home station, blocking the receipt of any alterations or changes to flight or mission plans, but that would require detailed knowledge of flight path or track or the luck of the lucky stumbling on the vehicle to achieve a position enabling that tactic by an electronic warfare aircraft-or knowledge of the flight track or mission. But…
Finally, for any of us who have messed with, deployed, tested, been around drones, UAVs, UAVs that are manned-more later-or maybe even some out there who might be familiar with this particular vehicle (like Winky,) there was a very famous and infamous incident that had to be adjudicated by the test officer, the program manager, the materiel developer and the Combat Development Team as well as the Joint UAV Program Management Office (JUAVPMO) when the US Army was putting the Medium Endurance, Short Range UAV-Hunter-through its paces at Fort Huachuca, Arizona in the early 1990s (1992-3.)
Huachuca was one of the JUAVPMO designated UAV test centers “of excellence,” (making one wonder how many centers of mediocrity there were-) having previously done testing on the tactical Pioneer UAV and the US Navy Scan Eagle, while also serving as a UAV training center. This was back when you couldn’t just fly UAVs into any chunk of airspace unrestricted and uncontrolled.
One of the Measures of Performance (MOP) stated tasks was that under conditions of a loss of datalink situation where the Hunter was unable to receive and establish two-way connectivity with the Mission Control System (MCS,) the standard called for the Hunter-after a pre-set period of time of five minutes in this case-but after any timeframe dialed in by the mission control or the launch and recovery unit ground crew who programmed the mission parameters into the Hunter flight control system as part of pre-flight, the Hunter would pre-empt or curtail mission operations, fly to the designated return to base (RTB) coordinate and land.
You may have read about this at one time or another, but a buddy of mine who was on site called to tell me that Army SSG “Dyslexia” had been the MCS operations lead that day, and the Hunter UAV flew exactly where he programmed it to land: smack dab in the middle of the Sea of Cortez, Mexico! So it technically met the MOP criteria, but there was that little piece that stated “to enable continuing mission operations“…so there was much disagreement as to whether the task was successfully completed. You know who said it, but Oh, my! Could have been worse, could have been one of my tests!
Now where, how and why does this have anything to do with Dona’linsky? Well, if you made it to this point in my series and you are asking that question, maybe I haven’t been as clear as humanly possible. Would this event qualify as an unbelievable event as I described above? Could this incident represent some type of fifth requirement I was belaboring earlier?
Who programmed the RTB home coordinate that day? Was it some military, CIA, contractor, Ahmadinejad, IRGC, or Dona’linsky????
This drone was apparently-according to the article-in Iranian airspace. Is there any chance the military-or whatever entity or agency was operating it against a national and strategic target (hmmmm) would have been violating Iranian airspace with a drone without permission of Obama’s National Security Council (NSC)/National Security Advisor (NSA)?
And who was that at the time, anybody remember? Hand in the back: Who is Tom Donilon-ding, ding, ding, ding, ding…
I don’t know Vern, that seems kind of unbelievable-even ten years later. The article says there is even more advanced stuff today, but with the Russians working on ever so much more sophisticated detection technology, later freed up by the Obama administration to sell advanced surface to air missile systems (S-300) and integrated air defense system (IADS) components to-among others-Syria and Iran-this loss of technology was devastating-even if just for the capability it potentially provided for Russia, Iran, China, Syria and North Korea-the loose inventory of Iran nuclear technology partners-to up their game on their own stealth technology and manufacturing processes to deal with their neighbors-or the world-never mind the US and Israel.
One of the potentially bad outcomes in the drive-by of this incident (checks list of items-ah yes, number 3) is that Israel would have to think twice about attempting to go after Syria or Iran nuclear facilities in the future if protected by an advanced IADS with acquisition radar signatures derived from test stand testing on an operational US RQ-170…: Hmmmm, that seems like a yuge Lesko deal.…
Now what did Victoria Nuland say-or was it Peppermint Patty Jen Poosaki- who said talks with the Iranians began in 2009 but started in earnest in 2011. Certainly well before the Nuland denial in February 2013 and certainly long before Poosaki shortly thereafter set things straight with the admission-coinciding with the next propaganda operation courtesy of the inventive Rhodes-to tout the “Iran moderate election gain” lies in the 2013 election. Started in earnest in 2011…hmmm….
I know what you are thinking: where was SSG Dyslexia on 5 December 2011? Harry Diamond Laboratory was working on UAV mission planning software at one time in the late 1980s that among other things had a mission simulator that double checked routing and output to a mil standard keying device that plugged into and uploaded the simulation proven routing: could have used it on this flight-some 19 years later.
And what could never be a funny story but is classic Army was a UAV called Mercury Green. What made it unique, and story-worthy was it could be flown with or without a pilot. During a mission in support of the Contras in and around Honduras and Nicaragua it either developed engine trouble or got too close to the action but the bottom line is the Army was soon in front of congress trying to explain how a pilot was lost flying a UAV.
Again, there is nothing funny about it, given the loss of an aviator during the mission. But you can imagine how interesting it would be for the Army to explain it (“COL Ford, we funded a UAV program. Tell me again what the “U” in UAV stands for in your understanding of it–or do I have something mixed up here?”)
It is an interesting question as to how the Iranians captured the RQ-170 relatively intact and to consider the question anew: what would Dona’linsky do or not do in pursuit of achieving an objective to satisfy his ego?
Max Dribbler
13 December 2024
LSMBTG: Lamestream media echo chamber (LMEC-L) social media (SM) big tech tyrants (BT) and government (G)
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