Air Force Inspector General Tapped to Lead Global Strike Command

July 18, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

Lt. Gen. Stephen L. Davis, the Department of the Air Force’s top internal watchdog, has been nominated to lead Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service’s bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile, the White House has nominated Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara to move from his current job as deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration to become the Air Staff’s director of staff, and Brig. Gen. Max E. Pearson to skip a rank and become the three-star deputy chief of staff for intelligence.

The Pentagon announced the nominations July 18.

If confirmed, Davis would pin on a fourth star and succeed Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, who was tapped to be the next Air Force vice chief of staff.

Davis is a missileer by trade, having spent time as a Minuteman III crew command and as vice commander and commander of missile wings. He has spent most of the past decade in various jobs at the Pentagon, broken up by a stint as director of global operations at U.S. Strategic Command.

He became Air Force inspector general in March 2022. In that role, he is responsible for overseeing independent investigations and inspections into specific complaints or queries. Perhaps most notably, Davis oversaw 2023 investigations into the unit of Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, who leaked national security information on Discord. That investigation determined there was a “culture of complacency” and lax security protocols within the unit, leading to disciplinary and other administrative actions against 15 Airmen.

The IG role has typically been a final stop in most officers’ careers—according to a review of former officals’ bios, the last Air Force IG to move on to another job was Lt. Gen. Bradley C. Hosmer in the early 1990s.

Davis, however, is being called upon to lead Global Strike at a pivotal time for the nuclear enterprise. The new B-21 bomber is poised to enter the fleet in the coming years; the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile is over budget and behind schedule, forcing the program to restructure. Both programs are expected to cost scores of billions of dollars.

Pearson’s jump from brigadier general to lieutenant general is also uncommon, though not unheard of. Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller also skipped a grade to her current rank.

Pearson is currently deputy director of operations for combat support at the National Security Agency. He previously served as director of operations at another intelligence organization, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and as the Air Force’s director of ISR operations.

Lt. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration on Monday, July 15, 2024, at the Air & Space Forces headquarters in Arlington, Va. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Gebara is taking on one of the top three-star jobs in the service, succeedinh Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus, who has filled in as vice chief since February. It is unclear if Pleus is retiring. Like Bussiere and Davis, Gebara has a deep nuclear background, with time as a B-52 and B-2 pilot. He also commanded of the 8th Air Force, which oversees the nation’s bomber fleets.

Space Force’s Guetlein Confirmed as Golden Dome Czar

July 18, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

The Senate confirmed Space Force Gen. Michael A. Guetlein to lead President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense program as “direct reporting program manager.”

The July 17 voice vote clears the way for Guetlein, who has been the Vice Chief of Space Operations, to take over one of the biggest projects in Pentagon history, one that spans multiple services and agencies and will cost well over $100 billion.

Lt. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton, nominated to succeed Guetlein as vice chief, is still awaiting confirmation, leaving that job vacant for now.

The White House nominated Guetlein June 18, but didn’t put Bratton’s nomination forward until July 16.

Golden Dome seeks to upgrade U.S. homeland missile defense to guard against ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile attacks. Trump floated the concept at his inauguration in January, approved a DOD plan at end of May and pegged the cost then at around $175 billion. The Space Force will play a major role in Golden Dome, providing missile warning and tracking satellites and potentially deploying space-based interceptors designed to destroy ballistic missiles early in their boost phase.

Also involved: The Missile Defense Agency, Army, Navy, and Air Force, whose radars, interceptors, and networks will all contribute to the program.

Tying it all together will be a monumental effort. In March, before he was nominated to lead Golden Dome, Guetlein said the project would require whole-of-nation and whole-of-government coordination, on par with the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II.

In its 2026 budget request, the Pentagon asked for $25 billion for Golden Dome, funding both new and existing programs. The department has offered little additional detail. Guetlein is an experienced acquisition executive, having previously headed Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s main acquisition arm, served as deputy director at the National Reconnaissance Office, and been the program executive for programs and integration at the Missile Defense Agency. All of those organizations will contribute to Golden Dome.

Who fills in for Guetlein as VCSO remains to be seen. A service spokesperson could not immediately say if Bratton, the nominee for the job, or someone else will fill it in an acting capacity. Air Force Director of Staff Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus has filled in as acting vice chief of staff since February, when Gen. James Slife was dismissed as part of a purge of senior military officers.

Assuming Bratton is confirmed, it would mark the first time the Space Force has had four four-star generals. Bratton would join Guetlein, CSO Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, and Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command.

USAF F-35s Fly from Philippines for First Time During Cope Thunder Exercise

July 18, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Air Force F-35s recently operated from the Philippines for the first time ever as part of the latest edition of the Cope Thunder exercise.

The fighters from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, flew alongside FA-50 jets, A-29 light attack planes, and helicopters from the Philippine Air Force during the exercise, which began July 7 and ends July 18. The jets were based out of Basa Air Base and focused on the country’s northern Luzon region—the part of the Philippines closest to Taiwan.

In a brief release marking the start of the exercise, Pacific Air Forces stated that “Cope Thunder exercises aim to facilitate bilateral fighter training with the Philippine Air Force, enhancing Alliance readiness and combined interoperability among participating forces.”

Images shared by PACAF show U.S. and Filipino Airmen sharing expertise on everything from airfield management to maintenance to refueling.

Yet it was the F-35s’ presence that marked the biggest milestone for the exercise.

As recently as a few years ago, the U.S. had never sent a fifth-generation fighter to the Philippines. That changed in March 2023, when American F-22s landed at Clark Air Base for the first time. In 2024, the U.S. Marine Corps sent F-35B fighters for to train out of Clark as well. But this month’s Cope Thunder marked the first time that U.S. F-35As have flown out of the Philippines, one of the U.S.’s closest allies in southeast Asia, where China has sought to assert its growing influence.

The Philippines is quietly increasing its ties to the self-governing island of Taiwan in a significant departure from past policy amid clashes over Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea, The Washington Post reported earlier this week.

Cope Thunder is just one in a series of exercises across the Pacific the U.S. Air Force is flying in this summer. In the past two weeks alone, the service has sent forces to Talon Shield and Talisman Sabre, bilateral exercises with Australia; started the latest Red Flag-Alaska session; and kicked off high-level department exercises in Mobility Guardian and Resolute Force Pacific.

What to Watch for the Air Force as House, Senate Advance Differing Defense Bills

July 17, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released the full text of its version of the 2026 defense policy bill—often referred to as the National Defense Authorization Act—that would allow the Air Force and Space Force to spend billions of dollars more than the services had sought for next year.

The $915 billion legislation, which green-lights at least $221 billion for the Department of the Air Force in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, bolsters aircraft purchases and research-and-development programs—including major boosts to top-priority acquisitions like the E-7 Wedgetail airborne target-tracking jet and Sentinel ground-based nuclear missile—while putting new guardrails on the military’s plan to retire certain workhorse planes.

The total sum is likely around $46 billion higher when accounting for troop pay and other personnel funding that isn’t broken out by service in the legislation.

The Air Force and Space Force are seeking $211 billion through the typical annual funding process as part of a 17 percent increase over the previous year’s budget. The services secured the remainder of their $250 billion request for 2026 through the sweeping tax-and-spending package known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that was signed into law July 4.

Senators saw this year’s defense policy bill as a springboard to build upon what critics argue is an anemic annual funding plan that relies too heavily on the one-time money offered in the One Big, Beautiful Bill. For instance, the committee approved nearly $61 billion for Air Force procurement and $57 billion for its research and development initiatives—$3 billion and $5 billion more than the Trump administration wanted, respectively.

In contrast, the House Armed Services Committee offered fewer increases than its Senate counterpart—and in some cases, shrinking programs. The House’s draft would allow the Air Force and Space Force to spend $211.3 billion before adding in military personnel dollars.

Senators are pushing for a 6 percent larger development budget and 12 percent bigger procurement budget for the Defense Department than House lawmakers, according to an analysis by the consulting firm Capital Alpha Partners.

Lawmakers on both sides of Capitol Hill will have to agree on a final dollar amount, a process that could end up tempering the Senate’s more expensive expectations.

Byron Callan, a defense analyst at Capital Alpha Partners, suggested July 17 there’s a 25 percent chance that the Senate’s proposed increases become law.

“Despite bipartisan support for higher defense spending evidenced in the SASC vote of 26-1 in favor of its markup, further increases to defense without increases to non-defense spending may face tougher sledding,” Callan wrote in a newsletter. “Regular appropriations, which entail the potential use of cloture and the need for 60 votes, will be a factor in the Senate.”

Here are some provisions to watch as the two bills move forward.

E-7 Wedgetail

Support among lawmakers appears to be growing to continue the Air Force’s pursuit of an E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning fleet. The Senate bill would add $700 million for E-7 prototyping, bringing next year’s funding to almost $900 million total—more than four times as much money as the Air Force projected last year it would need in 2026. The House bill added nearly as much, at $600 million.

Senators also slashed $1.5 billion that the Pentagon sought to purchase more Navy E-2D Hawkeye planes to perform the airborne target-tracking mission, rather than buy a new fleet of 26 Wedgetails. Defense officials have suggested that five Hawkeyes could fill in for the Air Force’s dwindling airborne early-warning and battle management fleet until satellites are ready to take on the job, while critics argue the Hawkeyes cannot provide the combatant command coverage provided by Air Force assets.

Fighters

The two bills’ text offers insight into each committee’s vision for the Air Force fighter fleet. Senators are pushing the Air Force to buy 34 F-35A Lightning II jets in 2026—a plan not echoed in the House—instead of the 24 the service requested. Lawmakers also want to see a plan for the government to own more of the F-35’s proprietary data so it can more easily communicate with older aircraft like the F-22 Raptor and future fighters like the next-generation F-47.

The committee authorized another $500 million for F-47 development, citing a “misaligned budget request,” to bring the jet’s budget to $3.1 billion next year. The House did not.

And the bill adds $678 million, for a total of nearly $790 million, to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program that is designing drone wingmen to accompany fighter pilots into war. It’s unclear whether the boost is meant to mirror the same amount the project received in the reconciliation bill earlier this month. The House did not include the same plus-up.

Senators likewise look to revise the restriction on how many F-15E Eagles the Air Force can retire, suggesting the service divest of up to 34 jets by the end of fiscal 2027 rather than up to 68 two years later.

Both the Senate and House would limit how many A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes the service could dump as well. The House bill requires the Air Force to keep at least 162 of the “Warthogs,” while the Senate bill would keep 103 or more.

Missiles

As lawmakers seek more insight into the cost of recent U.S. military operations in the Middle East, the Senate would give the Air Force $1 billion to replenish the weapons used to strike Iranian nuclear facilities in June as well as the munitions used in the campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen. That sum would also help restore force readiness following those missions, Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Rough Rider. The House bill doesn’t offer the same.

The Senate pours more money into other missile procurement and development initiatives passed up by the House. For instance, the Senate bill adds $149 million to accelerate design of the Air Force’s new nuclear-tipped Long-Range Standoff Weapon, as well as to create a conventional version of the missile.

And the Air Force’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, a program it shares with the Navy, could spend another $322 million above its request if the Senate gets its way. Air Force JASSM procurement would total $650 million next year for an undisclosed number of weapons under the SASC bill.

Nuclear Forces

Air Force Global Strike Command began managing the service’s nuclear enterprise in 2009. Nearly two decades later, Congress wants to codify the organization’s role and protect it from other commands that could encroach on its job.

Senators would block the Air Force from changing Global Strike’s staff, composition, or responsibilities as the service stands up a new Integrated Capabilities Command to oversee future hardware and software development across the force. What’s more, the Senate bill withholds a quarter of the Department of the Air Force’s 2026 funding until the Secretary of the Air Force reverses those changes to the Louisiana-based command.

The language is a partial rebuke of the service’s effort to streamline how it designs new capabilities rather than fragmenting those projects across multiple commands that oversee them at different stages.

Some critics have argued that strategic platforms are too complicated to be managed by officials outside of the nuclear enterprise, particularly as the Air Force looks to update its entire nuclear arsenal at once.

The House Armed Services Committee likewise designates the four-star Global Strike commander as the sole officer responsible for leading development of nuclear and long-range strike mission requirements, budget proposals, investment plans, and employment concepts.

The Senate also looks to exercise greater oversight over the secretive new B-21 Raider stealth bomber and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile programs, both of which will fall under Global Strike’s purview when they enter operations.

Senators want to require that the B-21 can employ nuclear gravity bombs within 180 days after the fleet is declared ready for initial operations, and the Long-Range Standoff Weapon within two years after the B-21 or the missile achieves initial operations.

Both chambers endorsed the new plane’s $5.7 billion base budget request for 2026, on top of the $4.5 billion the program received earlier this month to speed up production. The Senate would also push the Air Force for more details on how it will transition its bomber force to a mix of planes that carry nuclear and conventional weapons, including at least 100 B-21s, no later than 180 days after the defense policy bill is enacted.

The Raider, designed to slip past enemy air defenses with newer stealth technology than the B-2 Spirit, is slated to enter operations by the end of the decade as the most advanced bomber in the U.S. inventory.

The Senate bill also dictates that Sentinel missiles must be operational by October 2033, and that the Air Force should have no fewer than 400 ICBMs on alert at any given time except when transitioning between the current Minuteman III missiles and the new Sentinel fleet.

Senators would authorize an additional $2 billion, for $4.6 billion in total, for the troubled Sentinel program. The House version of the bill would add just $400 million, totaling $3 billion next year.

L3Harris Unveils ‘Wolf Pack’ Concept for Cheap, Kinetic/Nonkinetic Missile Swarms

July 17, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

L3Harris unveiled a new “Wolf Pack” series of unmanned aerial vehicles July 17, meant to overwhelm enemies with swarms of low-cost, paired kinetic and nonkinetic munitions, compelling defenders to expend more expensive weapons to stop them.

The newly revealed munitions join an increasingly crowded field of one-way or recoverable missile-like vehicles meant to have long standoff range and low cost, to create “affordable mass” capability. Similar systems are being developed or produced by Anduril Industries, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Zone 5 Industries, and others, under various programs within different military services.

L3Harris claims their versions cost around $300,000 to $400,000 per unit—depending on the payload—versus well over $1 million apiece for extant standoff cruise missiles.

Program officials said 41 test flights have been conducted with the Wolf Pack vehicles, and that the designs went from concept to production in less than five years.

The two new munitions, with nearly identical external mold lines, are named “Red Wolf” and “Green Wolf,” to denote, respectively, a kinetic effects munition and an electronic attack effects vehicle. Both are modular and can accept a wide range of payloads, they said, but they could not reveal the specific types of warheads.

The Red Wolf can “detect, identify, locate and report” on what’s in the battle area, officials said. They declined to discuss seeker systems. The vehicles can collaborate and be retargeted during the mission, officials said.

The company sees the two weapons as being “launched together,” to “create chaos” in the strike area, said Jen Lewis, L3 president of airborne combat systems. In a notional scenario, Red and Green Wolf missiles would be air-launched from a helicopter or drone—or from a surface vertical launch system—and fly to the target area, where Red Wolf vehicles would jam defenses and potentially conduct post-strike damage assessment, while the Green Wolf vehicles would dive on targets to destroy them kinetically.

“You can think of these as open system architectures, multi-function processing and data solutions, as well as avionics infrastructure,” she said. The electronic warfare capabilities “are advanced, fully integrated suites,” she said. “We deploy those on tactical maritime and ground platforms, tactical airborne systems.”

The Red and Green Wolf are each “interoperable across domains, and the modular design really [give]…them that commonality. This really enables the DOD to cost share and get efficiency in their spending,” Lewis said. She said that that development and integration costs have already been expended, with “investments that we have made and our customers have made. They’re developed, tested, and proven.”

The craft have a “high subsonic” speed and a range of 200 or so nautical miles, with a ceiling of about 40,000 feet. Officials could not discuss survivability features, although the munitions are shaped in a way that suggests radar cross section was a factor in the design.

However, “we want our adversaries to see it, in many cases,” said Matthew Klunder, vice president for Navy/Marine Corps business. “We’d love for them to shoot them down with some $2 million to $3 million missiles,” which would be a cost-imposing factor on an adversary.

“There’s other times when we might not want them to see it,” he added, and that will affect the envelope in which the missiles are launched.

“Our whole goal is to give our warfighters the advantage, and we know how to do that,” he said.

Lewis said the modular vehicles allow the operator to select the desired effect without requiring a huge inventory of bespoke munitions.

“Think about the other things we can do here,” she said, “like decoys, target tracking, [communications] relay.” The vehicle software will “support swarming of autonomous vehicles as well.”

Klunder said the Wolf Pack is in low-rate initial production and is intended first to equip Marine attack rotorcraft like the AH-1Z and Navy Seahawk helicopters. At the moment, he said, L3Harris is not eyeing a specific Air Force requirement, but said the service is observing what the Navy/Marine Corps are doing with Wolf Pack and showing “tremendous interest.”

The company did not show loadout options on craft like the F/A-18E/F or F-35, but Klunder said 12 could be accommodated on the former. The munitions would fit inside an F-35’s weapon bay as well as on external racks.

Asked if the Green Wolf could supplant or complement the Air Force’s ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy, Klunder said the Air Force “has the MALD, they know how to use it, they’re comfortable with it,” but Green Wolf could be a supplement, as it offers a lower cost, and likely more options on how it could be used.

As the Air Force “starts to see this operating in those kind of real environments, I think [it] is probably going to get very interested,” Klunder added. “And I can also tell you, we certainly could look at other ways” to deploy the weapon, such as “containerized versions” as used in the Rapid Dragon model, where pallets of weapons are launched out the back of a cargo aircraft.

“If they chose to utilize our munition, we could certainly provide it,” Klunder said.

Sterling Jones, vice president and general manager of the company’s agile development group, said some customers have requested that parachutes be added to allow recovery of some rounds for training purposes, and L3Harris was able to accommodate that request.

That allows flexibility to integrate higher-cost payloads, Jones said. He also said the systems are being built in Ashburn, Va., on a modular assembly line that is now spooling up production.

Space Force Promotes New NCOs at Breakneck Pace and Sky-High Rate

July 17, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force is promoting new noncommissioned officers at a breakneck pace, as the service announced another year of sky-high rates for junior NCOs.

More than four out of every five eligible Guardians were selected for promotion to either sergeant or technical sergeant in 2025, according to statistics from the Air Force Personnel Center. The full list of selectees was released July 17.

Nearly every specialist 4 looking to become a sergeant got the nod, with a 96.03 percent rate. That’s even higher than last year’s 95.66 percent. Of those selected, the average time in grade was 0.95 years and time in service was 3.38 years.

Those times in grade and service are the lowest in the Space Force’s brief history and stand in contrast to the Air Force—the average time in grade for Senior Airmen selected for staff sergeant hasn’t dipped below 1.6 years for at least nine cycles, and the time in service has stayed above four years.

Space Force leaders have said they want to revamp how they do promotions for sergeants, moving to what they call a “fully qualified” system where every E-4 who meets the qualifications will be promoted, removing any limits on the number of eligible candidates. For this cycle, however, Guardians went through the existing process in which candidates are scored and ranked based on their performance and training records, then picked by a selection board.

The selection rate for sergeants looking to move up to technical sergeant was well below the E-5 rate, but still up slightly over last year at 68.16 percent. The average time in grade was 3.39 years and time in service was eight years. Like the sergeant selectees, the time in grade and time in service are less than what the Air Force typically sees for its equivalent rank. The last nine USAF E-6 promotion cycles have featured time in grade averages above 4 years and time in service averages above 9 years.

All told, the 2025 Space Force cycle saw 733 promotions for sergeant and technical sergeant out of 896 eligible Guardians: 81.8 percent.

YEAR	Sergeant	Technical Sergeant	Master Sergeant
2025	96.03 percent	68.16 percent	18.22 percent
2024	95.66 percent	63.87 percent	21.34 percent
2023	72.08 percent	34.97 percent	30.18 percent
2022	66.91 percent	33.23 percent	29.89 percent

Unsurprisingly, the Space Force’s end strength in those grades has swelled in recent years. In 2023, when promotion rates were 20 percentage points lower for both grades than they are now, the service had 1,058 sergeants and 826 technical sergeants. Looking ahead to 2026, when the most recent promotions will come into full effect, USSF is expecting to have 1,274 sergeants and 1,081 technical sergeants—a 25 percent increase compared to a 17 percent increase in total force end strength.

While the junior NCO promotion rates have surged, the Space Force also announced a slightly lower rate for its E-7 master sergeant rank: 18.22 percent, the lowest in the service’s brief history.

Air Force Shakes Up Helicopter Plans, Wants to Convert Some HH-60Ws

July 17, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s helicopter fleet gets a major shakeup in the 2026 budget, highlighted by a decision to modify HH-60W helicopters to ferry VIPs around Washington, D.C., according to budget documents and a spokesperson.

The modified “Whiskeys” would replace aging UH-1 Hueys now operating out of Joint Base Andrews, Md. The Air Force had previously planned to buy MH-139s for that purpose.

“It is more cost effective to modify previously procured HH-60Ws contained in back up inventory than to procure additional MH-139A aircraft,” an Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

According to budget documents, the Air Force will use $15.1 million in supplemental funds plus additional “discretionary” funds to modify 26 HH-60Ws “to meet the Air Force District of Washington (AFDW) mission requirements.”

When asked where the HH-60s would come from and where they would be stationed, the spokesperson said only that “force structure and strategic basing decisions have yet to be determined.”

Modifying HH-60Ws suggests these helicopters will be repurposed away from their intended combat search and rescue mission, where the new Jolly Green IIs are supposed to replace older HH-60G Pave Hawks.

The Air Force chose the MH-139 for transporting security forces personnel across sprawling intercontinental ballistic missile fields.

Air Force helicopter plans have changed multiple times in recent years. The Air Force once planned to buy 113 HH-60Ws, but cut that total to 85 in its 2023 budget plan—including 75 production airframes and 10 test aircraft. Congress added funds for another 10 more aircraft in 2024 and four more in 2025, for a total of 89 production aircraft. USAF’s 2026 budget request confirms “funding is available to procure 100 aircraft,” including 11 test airframes.

The Air Force defines backup inventory as “aircraft above the primary mission inventory to permit scheduled and unscheduled depot level maintenance, modifications, inspections and repair and certain other mitigating circumstances without reduction of aircraft available for the assigned mission.” Pulling 26 HH-60s from the backup inventory would leave 74 to accomplish the core mission of search and rescue, close to the curtailed program of record.

A MH-139 Grey Wolf, assigned to 550th Helicopter Squadron conducts, conducts flight training at Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center, Wyoming, on April 9, 2025. U.S. Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Cesar Rivas

Separately, the Air Force planned to buy 84 MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopters to patrol its nuclear missile fields, for senior leader and executive airlift in the National Capital Region, and aircrew survival training. That buy was also reduced, first to 80 aircraft, then to 42—including 36 production frames and six test units. Reduced buys meant limiting the MH-139 only for nuclear patrol missions, leaving the executive airlift mission uncovered. Now, the spokesperson said,” the MH-139A Program of Record is being increased to 56 aircraft.” When those additional aircraft are to be acquired is not yet clear.

UH-1Ns, which date back to the Vietnam War, cannot endure forever. Congress seemed to take aim at the issue in the recently passed reconciliation bill, directing $210.3 million for “the increased production of MH–139 helicopters.”

How that will unfold is also not clear. The Air Force spokesperson acknowledged that the legislation “contained funding to replace the AFDW UH-1s,” and that “the funding contained in the legislation is only for MH-139A production.” But the spokesperson added that the funds are “an enabler for the overall MH-139A-HH-60W plan.”

The Air Force plans to buy just two MH-139s in fiscal 2026—the program’s stated full production rate—but budget documents note plans to use $150 million in reconciliation funds regardless.

“In addition to procuring two aircraft, the combined discretionary and reconciliation funds support the broader, long-term costs associated with sustaining and operating the MH-139A fleet,” the spokesperson said.

Also unclear is what modifications are needed to convert the HH-60W Jolly Green IIs into senior leader and executive airlift. The Jolly Green II and Grey Wolf are quite different. The HH-60W is longer, has a wider rotor and can be refueled in transit. Its interior layout and equipment is optimized for search and rescue.

HASC’s Draft Authorization Would Save E-7, Block A-10 Retirements

July 16, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The House Armed Services Committee on July 15 passed its draft of the 2026 defense policy bill, 55-2, in a late-night vote following nearly 14 hours of debate over hot-button issues ranging from President Donald Trump’s desire to use a Qatari jet as Air Force One to cutting military aid to Ukraine.

The marathon meeting offered committee members a chance to order the military services to provide fresh details on their top priorities—and, in some cases, to override the Pentagon’s plans.

The legislation authorizes $848.2 billion for the military, including at least $211.3 billion for the Air Force and Space Force. It looks to save the Air Force’s plan to buy two E-7 Wedgetail airborne target-tracking jet prototypes from cancellation, block retirement of the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes, and boost funding for the new Sentinel ground-based nuclear missiles to over $3 billion, among myriad other spending tweaks and oversight provisions.

“For decades, American deterrence has protected our homeland and been a powerful force for peace,” committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a statement following the bill’s passage shortly before midnight. “At a time when global threats are rapidly evolving and becoming more complex, it’s never been more important to have a ready, lethal, and capable fighting force.”

While it appears that the House is poised to grant the Department of the Air Force’s $211 billion base budget request, it’s unclear exactly how much the draft National Defense Authorization Act would offer the Air Force and Space Force in total. The bill doesn’t specify how much the two services would receive from the nearly $194 billion pot of money the committee offered for military personnel.

Lawmakers sought more insight into the Air Force’s sweeping modernization goals and issued a flurry of amendments to grow the Space Force’s responsibilities, but stopped short of exerting as much control over aircraft inventory changes as in recent years.

One amendment, offered by Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), presses the Air Force for a report on the next-generation F-47 program. The jet is envisioned as the U.S. military’s most advanced fighter and a centerpiece of the future aviation fleet.

But few details about the program, now in development, have been made public. Lawmakers would require the Air Force to describe the jet’s requirements, how it would be used in combat, and its projected cost between fiscal 2028 and 2034, among other schedule and price specifics.

Another provision would stop the Air Force from continuing to retire the A-10 “Warthogs” or shrink the total inventory below 162 planes until Oct. 1, 2027. The service’s budget documents show it would divest of the entire A-10 fleet next year as it argues the Warthog would be too vulnerable against advanced air defenses in future wars.

The amendment was introduced by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who represents the A-10’s longtime home of Moody Air Force Base.

Lawmakers backed multiple provisions meant to bolster the mobility and aerial refueling fleets, as well as language stopping the Pentagon from bringing on more than 183 KC-46 Pegasus tankers until the defense secretary confirms to Congress that a corrective action plan is in place for all of the plane’s major design issues. That essentially bars the Air Force from growing its Pegasus fleet past the 180 or so jets it initially planned to purchase.

“We are raising the air refueling aircraft floor to 504 aircraft by 2027 to reflect demands for aerial refueling, and maintaining the inventory requirement of 271 C-130 aircraft needed for intra-theater airlift,” Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.), chair of the subcommittee overseeing mobility and bomber forces, added in prepared remarks. “Together with the B-21 and C-130J aircraft in reconciliation, the committee is sending a signal of strong support for airborne force projection.”

Other language focuses on personnel issues, such as how the Air Force might plan to maximize the number of new pilots it trains each year and mold mitigation in military housing. Some touch on recent events: one amendment directs the Pentagon to submit a report detailing the costs of Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities last month; another requires a briefing on force protection measures at the U.S.-run Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which was targeted by Iranian missiles last month following the American airstrikes.

Notably absent from the bill are significant investments in new aircraft production. Lawmakers opted earlier this month to approve aircraft procurement increases through the massive tax-and-spending package known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” rather than taking the typical route of adding more planes into the base budget.

“The decision to fund critical modernization programs via reconciliation rather than the standard appropriations process is interesting,” said Carlton Haelig, a budget analyst at the Center for a New American Security. “For instance, the entirety of the Air Force’s F-15EX procurement for FY26 is authorized by the reconciliation bill, zeroing out F-15 procurement through the standard appropriations process.”

Lawmakers used most of the markup session to debate contentious issues that have dominated President Donald Trump’s second term so far, from defense officials’ use of the unclassified messaging app Signal to discuss airstrike plans to efforts to defund diversity programs and continued construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

An amendment raised by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) that sought to bar the Trump administration from using federal dollars to retrofit the Qatari Boeing 747 as an interim Air Force One failed in a party-line vote. Another offered by Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), which would have withheld money from the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program until Congress received written confirmation that the program has entered advanced development, was shot down 15-42.

Eleven standalone amendments made it through the markup for consideration by the full House, including measures barring funds from being used to ignore the recommendations of the panel that suggested new names for military installations commemorating Confederate heroes; creating a supplemental insurance plan to help service members cover the cost of cancer treatment; adding $100 million for military aid to Ukraine; and prohibiting the Defense Department from taking a person’s race, ethnicity or nationality into consideration for hiring or assignment decisions, among others.

The authorization bill allows the military to spend money provided by congressional appropriators when the next fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Now that the Senate and House Armed Services Committees have both finalized their respective versions of the annual defense policy bill, the legislation will head to a vote by the full chambers before a group of lawmakers try to cobble the two bills into a final draft that both the House and Senate can agree upon.

A compromise bill typically heads to the president’s desk at the end of the calendar year.

Defense Policy Nominee Has Advocated Merging NRO and Space System Command

July 16, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

Combining the National Reconnaissance Office with the Space Force’s Space Systems Command could help turbocharge national security space acquisition, argues Mark Berkowitz, the Trump administration’s nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for space policy, in a newly published essay he coauthored.

Berkowitz is awaiting Senate confirmation and was not available for comment. The essay appears in the book, “Contested Space: Ensuring Effective U.S. National Security Space Capabilities in an Increasingly Contested Environment,” which was recently published by by the nonprofit National Security Space Association.

In the essay, Berkowitz and coauthor Chris Williams, a former Defense Department official, argues that the Trump administration should tighten the relationship between the two organizations, including a potential merger, to improve coordination between the Space Force and the intelligence community with regard to space technology. A closer relationship would help Space Force acquirers benefit from NRO’s special authorities and vast experience.

Williams spoke July 15 at the Washington D.C. book launch, along with other contributors. He said merging NRO with Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s main acquisition organization, would create a “single, agile” entity to “enable closer collaboration, utilize best of breed acquisition practices and result in more integrated mission architectures.”

A single organization could “promote a common culture focused on rapidly delivering advanced space capabilities to national and defense customers, enhance technology sharing, improve communications between the various [acquisition] organizations and more,” Williams said.

The Space Force could also benefit from a merger because it would be able to leverage the NRO’s special purchasing rules, Williams added. “One of the reasons the NRO is so effective is because of those very unique acquisition authorities and the Space Force does not have similar authorities in many respects,” he explained. “It’s worth looking at how those might be blended.”

A less radical alternative: Moving Space Systems Command from its Los Angeles Air Force Base headquarters in California to co-locate with the NRO in Chantilly, Va. That too could be controversial, Williams acknowledged. Co-location would “enable closer collaboration and integration of acquisition activities … and promote efforts to create synergies, both within DOD and between DOD and the NRO space programs that could potentially result in long term cost savings.”

He and Berkowitz suggest other ways to forge tighter bonds: a common training curriculum and career path for acquisition professionals and “shared adoption of common systems engineering, modeling and simulation architecture,” said Williams. “It’s very wonky, but important stuff.”

Williams insisted their essay, and indeed all the ideas in the book as a whole, are not prescriptive. “It doesn’t say, ‘You must do X, Y, and Z.’” Instead, the authors lay out policy options the administration should consider, leaving it up to policymakers to weigh the pros and cons.

The book was written last year, before the election, but had to be submitted for classification review by the DOD, noted Williams.

Merging or even co-locating Space Systems Command with the NRO would be a massive undertaking, Williams acknowledged in a short interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. Politics, as well as policy considerations would come into play. Congress would have to approve any reorganization and local politicians would protest, he said: “Don’t take that out of my backyard!”

Others would argue that the costs and the disruption of a cross-country move would kneecap Space Systems Command for the crucial years running up to 2027 — the date by which China’s President Xi Jinping has demanded that the People’s Liberation Army be ready to take Taiwan by force if needed.

“The dislocation, moving people across the country, that’s a big deal,” Williams said, “There’s a cost associated with it, and there’s also the time and energy that’s spent. The question is, is it the right thing to do? Are those near-term costs worth the long-term benefits? Those are decisions the folks in the government have to make.”

When the Space Force was set up in the first Trump administration, the intelligence agencies and their oversight committees on Capitol Hill successfully fended off proposals to move NRO into the new service.

But Williams said the new administration is open to proposals for disrupting the status quo.

“If Trump is anything, he’s a rock-the-boat kind of guy,” Williams said. “This administration is interested in doing things differently … so maybe we’ll see some of these issues addressed.”

Williams noted that many Defense Department posts remain vacant, even six months after the inauguration. New Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, a former Air Force officer, spent the past decade at NRO, including the past five as its deputy director.

“As the new administration starts filling out some of their key people, as those people start occupying their new jobs and engaging together, my hope is they’ll have more time and energy to devote to this,” he said.

Former NRO Director Jeffrey Harris, a member of NSSA’s advisory board, welcomed the proposal, pointing out that the NRO had originally been founded to ensure the project to build the nation’s first photographic spy satellite, Corona, would be completed rapidly and avoid interservice disputes.

“The Army was trying to get their booster [rocket] to work, while the Air Force was trying to get theirs … And President [Eisenhower] finally said, ‘This is actually sort of important. Why don’t we organize to get the job done?’” he said. “And so the NRO was formed in 1960.”

As an intelligence agency, the NRO functions under different rules, out of the public eye, and can draw “the best and the brightest” from across the community, including the Air Force, Space Force, CIA, and Navy, Harris said, “civilian and military, fully integrated under a common command structure across research, development, acquisition, procurement and operations, allows us to move with speed and agility.”

Rivalries continue, however. In the mid 1990s, when he was NRO director, a bureaucratic fight over a small military payload on an NRO satellite caused a costly delay. “The satellite had $6 million worth of defense investment on it, and the money had to be moved from one defense account to another,” Harris recalled. “I was spending $10 million a month waiting for $6 million to move.” SNAFUs like that could be avoided if NRO and Space Systems Command were more closely linked, he said. “We have the people to figure out how to go do the mission—if we can get the [acquisition] systems to appreciate that.”