‘Same Threats’ Drive Air Force, Marines to Different Visions of Future War. How Will They Work Together?

Jan. 20, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force became the latest service to roll out a new operating concept for the future when Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin unveiled the service’s Force Design last fall. But the Air Force is hardly the only service with a Force Design, and a pressing question for military and civilian leadership is how to stitch them all together.

“We’re all seeing the same threats from the PRC as the pacing threat, and we’re all attempting to modernize to meet that threat,” Commandant of the Marines Corps Gen. Eric Smith said Jan. 15 when he was asked about the Marines’ future efforts to counter the People’s Republic of China.

“We’re all doing it slightly different ways, but the theme is the same—that we have to have longer range, we have to have lower signature, we have to have more lethality, we have to be more distributed and more dispersed,” Smith told reporters at Defense Writers Group event.

Allvin’s Force Design envisions a future in which the Air Force can no longer operate with impunity and must tailor its capabilities to China’s growing capability to target U.S. bases and command centers throughout the Pacific. The service says that its Force Design will be upgraded based on “a continuous cycle of wargaming, modeling and simulation, and strategic assessments.”

“The PRC’s ever-growing capacity of increasingly capable long-range fires—such as ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—continues to expand the range and density with which they can threaten friendly forces,” the Air Force’s unclassified summary of its Force Design states. “The character of war has changed—the combination of network-enabled long-range fires, and mass quantities of agile short-range systems, challenges our preferred way of war. The Air Force must transform from what it is today to what it needs to be to compete.”

The Marines’ Force Design, which was made public by their former commandant four years ago, also makes the case for overhauling the military. But it is far more detailed than the one put forward by the Air Force and spells out which weapons the Corps plans to add and which ones leaders contend they no longer need.

Under the Marines’ concept, small units equipped with anti-ship missiles and drones would move from island to island to try to bottle up China’s naval fleet. The Marine plan to fund the transformation with offsetting cuts, which entailed getting rid of all the tanks, eliminating bridging companies, and upping missile batteries. The Marine plan is well underway, though Smith said it has been hindered by delays in acquiring the amphibious warfare ships the Marines need.

“We are going to be in the first island chain,” said Smith, referring to the stretch of territory from Japan to Taiwan, the northern Philippines, and the South China Sea. “What Force Design was all about was creative thinking about the way forward, about the next war, not fighting the last one, because the next war with the PRC is not going to be, if it goes there, is not going to be like any war we fought before.”

The Army, which has touted its new “multi-domain” task forces, and the Navy, which has developed its “Navigation Plan,” have also developed future war plans with China in mind. But while the services seem to agree about the threat, it is less clear how the various visions will work in practice, though the military leaders acknowledge this is vital. “Our success depends on purposeful integration of the Air Force with the Joint Force, Allies, and partners,” the Air Force Force Design summary notes.

To harmonize the disparate service initiatives, the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a classified Joint Warfighting Concept. It also has a Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), which is led by the Vice Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady, and is supposed to establish future requirements for the entire military.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark A. Milley thought something more was needed, such as a new “Joint Futures” command, organization, or office that would spur the service’s disparate future war efforts and bring them together. “That organization will help drive these concepts, but also the technologies and describing the operational environment that we’re moving into,” Milley said in June 2023.

Smith suggested that the current system is working for now. “The JWC is something that we all have to fit under, something we all have to contribute to,” said Smith. “We do that through joint wargames, and those are run by the Joint Staff run out of the Pentagon, so we do see how they all fit together.” Joint exercises, he said, also plan a role.

The idea, Smith said, is to put “together the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, and at the end of that, we do a hot wash and we scrub and see, ‘How did we fit together? Where do we overlap? Where do we maybe have a little bit too much, maybe not enough?’”

Blue Origin, SpaceX Test Massive New Rockets; Space Force Watches with Interest

Jan. 18, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

With a pair of major launches from competing vendors Jan. 16, the Space Force got a glimpse of how it may access space in the future—along with reminders that it may take a little while to get there.

First, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket made its maiden launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Fla., in the early morning hours.

Space Launch Delta 45 supported the first flight of the 320-foot rocket, which ended with the upper stage successfully reaching medium-Earth orbit and releasing its payload, a spacecraft called Blue Ring.

In a release, SLD 45 confirmed that New Glenn’s first launch will count toward its certification process for the National Security Space Launch program. NSSL is responsible for putting the government’s most important military and intelligence satellites into orbit, and rockets must have two successful launches before they can be certified as part of the program.

Right now, only one company has an NSSL-certified vehicle: SpaceX, which has come to dominate the launch market and sparked some concern about a lack of competition. SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk is also close to President-elect Donald Trump.

New Glenn’s successful launch and first step toward certification raises hopes of more competition. At last month’s Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla., U.S. Space Command boss Gen. Stephen N. Whiting made it clear he wanted to see New Glenn get going, as well as United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, which is still awaiting certification.

“That’s an important capability for the nation,” he said. “So we’re eager to see those come online.”

Both Blue Origin and ULA have been tapped to participate in “Phase 3” of NSSL, but until their rockets are certified, they can’t actually fly those missions. That’s already led to delays for payloads that were tasked to ULA for Phase 2.

In addition to the rocket, the payload for Blue Origin’s launch also carried implications for the Space Force. Blue Ring is meant to provide “in-space logistics and delivery”—capabilities that will be crucial for the service’s plans to develop satellites that can maneuver in space and be refueled instead of simply “dying” when they run out.

Blue Origin has already reached an agreement with the Defense Innovation Unit to test Blue Ring in a future mission, and the first spacecraft in orbit now could give the Space Force an idea of how the system may be best used in the future.

An artist rendering shows a Blue Ring spacecraft, developed by Blue Origin, focused on providing in-space logistics and delivery. Blue Ring will serve commercial and government customers and can support a variety of missions in medium-Earth orbit out to the cislunar region and beyond. The platform provides end-to-end services that span hosting, transportation, refueling, data relay, and logistics. **Blue Origin**

The lone blemish on the successful Blue Origin launch was the failure to land the first-stage booster for reuse later, though company officials and observers have noted that doing so on the first flight was an ambitious goal.

Reusability is key to driving launch costs down, and SpaceX has made it the company’s calling card after years of trial and error in the early 2010s with its Falcon 9 rocket.

Just a few hours after the New Glenn launch, SpaceX conducted the seventh test flight of its own massive rocket, Starship. The results were mixed: the booster stage of the rocket successfully returned to Earth and was caught by a giant pair of mechanical “chopsticks,” but the upper stage exploded after separation, never reaching orbit.

Like New Glenn, Starship figures prominently in the Space Force’s future plans. Standing about 400 feet tall, it is the tallest rocket ever and can hold payloads of 100-150 tons.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman was on hand to watch a previous Starship test, and the Air Force Research Laboratory awarded SpaceX a $102 million contract in 2022 to study how Starship could be used for the Space Force’s “Rocket Cargo” initiative. Rocket Cargo is one of the service’s “Vanguard” initiatives, with the goal of moving a C-17’s worth of supplies or personnel anywhere in the world on rapid timelines without the overflight risk.

That idea is still being considered, Space Systems Command boss Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant told reporters in November.

“We are thinking about how we might use it. We think the first, most logical, given the payload volume … would be some type of rocket cargo delivery mechanism,” Garrant said during a roundtable hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “Absolutely interested in the potential military utility and definitely following their progress.”

However, the Starship vehicle that would carry that cargo is part of the rocket that exploded during this most recent test—highlighting the work still left to do to make it viable for the Pentagon.

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/aq91TloYzY
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 16, 2025

Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed! ✨
pic.twitter.com/nn3PiP8XwG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2025

Former Space Force Officer Tapped to Be New Air Force Undersecretary

Jan. 18, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

Incoming President Donald Trump announced Jan. 17 he will nominate former Space Force Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier to be the next undersecretary of the Air Force.

If confirmed, Lohmeier would serve as the No. 2 civilian in the Department of the Air Force and the deputy to Trump’s Air Force Secretary pick, Troy Meink.

Lohmeier came to public prominence in 2021, when he self-published a book alleging that Marxist ideology had become widespread in the military. In the book and a subsequent podcast appearance, he criticized the Pentagon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and claimed conservative viewpoints were being silenced among senior leaders.

Then-Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting removed Lohmeier from his post as commander of 11th Space Warning Squadron, over a loss of confidence in his ability to lead. A spokesperson said at the time that the decision was based on his podcast comments. Whiting is now the four-star commander of U.S. Space Command, one of the U.S. military’s 11 combatant commands.

Shortly after being fired, Lohmeier separated from the military. Since, he briefly hosted his own podcast and became a regular guest on others, keeping up his criticism of the military’s leadership.

Now he is poised to return to the Department of the Air Force, and Trump suggested Lohmeier will reverse or eliminate many of the policies and programs he has criticized

“Matthew will work with the GREAT Secretary of Defense Nominee, Pete Hegseth, to end the devastating ‘woke’ policies that have destroyed our Military, and make our Country STRONG AGAIN,” Trump wrote.

If both Meink and Lohmeier are confirmed, the Department of the Air Force’s top civilian leaders will each have deep backgrounds in space. While previous senior leaders have had some experience in the domain, Meink and Lohmeier would be perhaps the most space-knowledgeable combination ever.

Lohmeier graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2006 and spent the first part of his career as a pilot, flying the T-38 as an instructor pilot, followed by the F-15C. By 2015, he was in his first space-focused assignment, and in 2020, he transferred over to the Space Force. Shortly thereafter, he took command of the 11th Space Warning Squadron, responsible for providing missile warning and tracking worldwide.

Trump’s picks of Meink and Lohmeier may be a sign that the young service will receive extra focus in the new administration. Trump championed the Space Force’s creation in his first term, and after early years of explosive growth, USSF leaders have said their service needs more resources and manpower to keep up with a growing mission set, as they face their first ever budget cut in 2025.

Latest F-35 Airframe Contracts Coming in Spring; Engine Deal Later in 2025

Jan. 17, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-35 Joint Program Office doesn’t expect to sign a contract with Lockheed Martin for production Lots 18 and 19 until the spring, while a deal for the engines powering those aircraft may take longer to reach, a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

While that timeline pushes the contracts into the administration of incoming President Donald Trump, sources told Air & Space Forces Magazine they have discounted the idea that the government has slowed negotiations in hopes that Trump will intervene in the program and demand or impose price reductions.

The JPO and Lockheed announced a “handshake deal”—a basic understanding of costs and quantities with details still to be worked out—on airframe production Lots 18 and 19 in December, but a similar agreement with Pratt & Whitney for the F135 engines is still pending.

The JPO “plans to definitize the air vehicle contract in the spring,” a spokesperson said in response to queries, adding that the office “plans to award the engine contract in 2025,” suggesting that will happen even later in the year.

Unit costs for the three variants of the F-35—A, B and C—will not be released until both the air vehicle and engine contracts are signed, the spokesperson said.

A Pratt & Whitney spokesperson was not immediately able to offer comment on the extended engine negotiations, and a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the company is making no public comments until its January earnings report comes out.

Just before Christmas, the Pentagon announced a deal in principal to pay up to $11.8 billion for the next 145 F-35s as part of Lot 18. That would translate to a per-jet price of some $82 million, but that cost does not include the engine. The previous contract, for lots 15-17, was for $75 million per aircraft without the engine.

Based on previous contracts, the F135 is estimated to have a price of about $15 million per copy, mostly dependent on whether it includes the “lift fan” feature in the short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) version of the powerplant.

Combining the two would suggest the F-35’s full cost under Lot 18 will be a cross-variant average of around $97 million per airframe.

Throughout the program, the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) version used by the Air Force is the lowest-price version, while the F-35B short takeoff and landing version used by the Marine Corps is the priciest, and the Navy’s carrier-based F-35C comes in between the other two in cost.

Trump may have keen interest in the F-35’s price as he returns to the White House. He intervened in the program in 2017, even before taking office, pressuring Lockheed for lower costs and higher employment on the program; both of which were effectively already in motion because the F-35 production volume was rising sharply at that time.

Elon Musk, co-chair of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has recently ridiculed the F-35 as obsolete, and has said the U.S. needs to invest more substantially in autonomous combat drones, even though Trump himself spoke favorably of the program during the presidential campaign.

However, the Pentagon has been working on this most recent contract for months. The handshake deal was originally expected to be inked in December 2023. Lockheed and program officials have telegraphed that the new unit cost would be higher due to inflation, labor and supply chain issues, and the fact that the latest jets are more complex and have the foundational elements for the Block 4 upgrade.

It’s not clear whether the F135 Engine Core Upgrade (ECU), a series of improvements needed to give the F135 more thrust, longevity and electrical power generation capability, is a major factor in the extended negotiations with Pratt & Whitney.

While the JPO has typically negotiated three lots at a time, Lot 20 is being negotiated separately because it could be the first in a series of multiyear buys. While some aspects of multiyear buys are already in place—allies are buying F-35s under the “block buy” rubric—the multiyear status requires that the program complete operational testing and pass Milestone C, full-rate production. That declaration was made in March 2024.

Negotiations have also been extended and complicated by the yearlong hold on F-35 deliveries. The hold was due to jets being built with the Tech Refresh 3 hardware and software, testing of which was still underway when those jets rolled off the production line. The hold was lifted in July when the program executive officer, Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, deemed the TR-3 configuration safe for routine operations.

Experts: Troop Pay Report Is a Big Step Forward. Now They Want Policy Changes

Jan. 17, 2025 | By David Roza

Experts and advocates commended a new Pentagon report on military pay and compensation, saying the document will help guide much-needed changes to how the Defense Department sets benefits and bring more awareness to the role of military spouses in service members’ financial health.

“The importance of this study cannot be overstated,” Derek Doyle, director of public affairs for the Military Family Advisory Network, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “The financial security of military families is an issue of national security. Financial health and compensation are inextricably connected, as are financial well-being and overall well-being, and the propensity to recommend military service.”

Released Jan. 15, the 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation took a sweeping look at the military compensation system, including basic pay, housing allowance, cost of living allowance, child care incentives, bonuses, and other benefits.

The report determined that military compensation is strongly competitive with the civilian labor market, but the Defense Department needs to update its methodology for several of its allowances and rethink support for military spouses. Those include:

The basic allowance for housing (BAH), which can change wildly year to year and is not always aligned with expensive areas where troops are stationed.

Cost of living allowances (COLA), which covers non-housing expenses in pricey areas. The report said COLA rates are sometimes thrown off by incomplete, outdated surveys.

Non-cash compensation (such as retirement options, child care support, employment initiatives) to provide financial stability for spouses after permanent change of station (PCS).

BAH

The rapid economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in QRMC’s recommendations, said Katherine Kuzminski, director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security.

“In 2020 and 2021, we saw this huge jump in the cost of housing across the country … and BAH is recalculated just once a year,” she said. “All the reporting that came out at the time about junior enlisted service members and families being food insecure, that was all linked to the fact that if you’re ordered to move, you have to move, and if there’s price gouging in the housing market, you absorb that cost.”

In response, the Pentagon authorized targeted BAH increases starting in 2021, but the formula for calculating BAH rates does not always match the needs of a military housing area, the QRMC report concluded. Indeed, 79.8 percent of respondents to a 2023 survey by the Military Family Advisory Network said they pay more than they can comfortably afford for housing, and 70.1 percent said bumps to BAH rates were negated due to inflation and high regional costs.

The report said BAH for service members with dependents is between 17 and 60 percent higher than average civilian housing expenditures, but many families say it is not enough, according to Eileen Huck, government relations senior deputy director at the National Military Family Association.

“We often hear from families who are paying quite a bit out of pocket for housing,” she said. “Their BAH is not enough to cover the cost of housing, and that’s especially an issue in high cost-of-living areas like southern California and Hawaii. But it’s not limited to those areas.”

The compensation review recommended that the Pentagon revise its BAH methodology to be more stable and accurate, in part by pulling in census data and basing rates on the number of bedrooms in a dwelling rather than the type of dwelling. That recommendation lines up with a letter MFAN, NMFA, and 15 other military service organizations wrote to the Pentagon last February which specifically called for modernizing the housing allowance formula.

“The current system is not working for a lot of families,” Huck said. “BAH is a big part of military compensation, so it’s important that they get it right.”

Spouse Employment

Experts also praised the 14th QRMC for its focus on military spouses. This report was the first in the series to examine the impact of dual-income households. Most military spouses want to work, the report found, but frequent moves and changes in child care access reduce their ability to do so, which can in turn affect retention decisions.

About 22 percent of Active-Duty spouses are unemployed and looking for work, Huck pointed out, and the QRMC found that spouse earnings fall by an average of 14 percent in any PCS year.

“That has a pretty significant cumulative effect on the spouse’s earning potential, and then obviously has an impact on the family’s financial stability as well,” she said.

The QRMC recommended non-cash compensation options, such as decreasing PCS frequency, expanding access to child care, and reducing barriers to spouse retirement savings. Huck said there’s still more to be done, such as expanding tax credits for employers that hire military spouses. But the report is a big step for military officials.

“Now that the department and the services have this data about the impact of military service on spouse employment and income, they can make policy changes to hopefully make it easier for military spouses to stay in jobs and build their careers,” she said.

More Than Pay

A key point of the 14th QRMC is that the military compensation package is “strongly competitive” with the civilian labor market. On average, enlisted troops make more money than 82 percent of their civilian counterparts with similar education and experience, while officers make more than 75 percent, the report found.

An upcoming pay raise will raise that bar even higher, but the QRMC figures may not be as impressive as they sound amid stagnant civilian wages and high living costs, Kuzminski said.

“Civilian wages have largely stagnated since the early 1990s,” she said. “So if you take an E-2 with two years of experience and compare them to the standard 20-year-old, just because you’re doing better than that does not mean that you objectively feel like you’re well off.”

Indeed, the report’s conclusions seem to run contrary to moves by Congress, which recently passed a 14.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted troops and a 4.5 percent pay raise for the rest of the military. But Kuzminski said the two parties approach the subject with different goals.

“The QRMC is looking at it in pure economic terms, like, could you get the same force for less dollars?” she said. “Whereas what Congress is looking at has a lot more to do with signaling morality and values.”

The review made eight recommendations to improve the military compensation picture, and Kuzminski said they have a good chance of being acted on even as a new administration under President-elect Donald Trump takes over next week.

“I don’t think any of [the recommendations] are controversial,” she said, since raising military compensation is a rare area of agreement in Congress. “I think that we’ll see quite a bit of bipartisan support.”

Lockheed Certifies F-35 to Use Sustainable Fuels. Will USAF Take Advantage?

Jan. 16, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin has approved Synthetic Aviation Turbine Fuels (SATFs) as safe to fly in the F-35 fighter, a potential boon for the Air Force’s energy and climate goals.

The announcement coincides with Norway demonstrating the first use of SATFs in its F-35s.

After “comprehensive technical and strategic analysis to ensure SATF meets the strict performance and reliability standards required for the F-35’s complex, high-demand missions,” Lockheed decided there was no technical risk, a spokesperson said, as long as SATFs comprise no more than 50 percent of the fuel load mix with standard fuel. The 50 percent limit is dependent on “the type of raw materials and production pathway.”

SATFs derive from both fossil-based sources such as coal and gas as well as renewables or recyclables like agricultural products and waste oil.

“The new fuel sources will improve readiness by reducing reliance on the extended supply chain,” Lockheed said.

With the approval, U.S. F-35s could fly using SATFs during deployments to Norway, when the host country provides fuel for joint exercises.

“The integration of SATF supports the Department of Defense’s objectives for energy substitution and diversification while enhancing energy resilience and operational flexibility,” the company added.

Norway made the first F-35 flights with SATF on Jan. 14; the fuel load included a 60/40 mix of standard jet fuel and what the Norwegian defense ministry described as “biofuels.”

Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram said that Norway’s air force accounts for a third of the defense ministry’s carbon emissions. Switching to a more sustainable blend will “reduce emissions and strengthen supply security,” he said in a press release. “The aim is to achieve climate targets while enhancing preparedness.”

Gram also said Norway has a new defense plan that calls for “significantly increased” activity of its armed forces. SATF could help accomplish that while curbing the military’s climate impact. Norway has about 40 of the 52 F-35s it plans to field by the late 2020s.

In the mid-2000s, the U.S. Air Force invested in a synthetic jet fuel capability using the Fischer-Tropsch method and tested the resultant fuels on a C-17 and on a B-52. Then-Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne pursued the technology because of the excessive cost of aviation fuel at the time and concern that the Air Force—the Defense Department’s largest user of fuel—might run short during a national crisis. The method explored converting coal and other materials into aviation-grade fuel.

A B-52 flown in September 2006 ran two engines on a synthetic fuel blend and the other six engines on JP-8. Two months later, the B-52 ran all eight engines on the synthetic fuel blend.

The Air Force was not immediately able to describe its current capability to produce synthetic fuel. As recently as 2021, it partnered with private companies to produce aviation fuels from carbon using the Fischer-Tropsch method. And in its 2022 Climate Action Plan, the service laid out a goal of creating a pilot program to ensure that by 2026, 10 percent of the aviation fuel at two Air Force operational locations is sustainable and costs the same or less than traditional fuel.

With an annual consumption of about two billion gallons of aviation fuel, any reduction in the unit cost per gallon of fuel could be significant for the Air Force budget.

SDA Director Suspended Pending Investigation

Jan. 16, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

Derek M. Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation, the Department of the Air Force announced late Jan. 16.

The department provided no other details on the nature of the investigation or a timeline for when it may be completed. Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant, head of Space Systems Command, will serve as SDA’s acting director in the interim.

Tournear became SDA’s first permanent director in 2019, shortly after the agency was established under the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering to accelerate the acquisition of commercial tech for space, particularly for low-Earth orbit.

Under Tournear, SDA developed plans for what is now called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture: a massive constellation of hundreds of satellites in low-Earth orbit with new spacecraft going up in two-year cycles to keep refreshing the technology on orbit. The PWSA will consist of “layers”—one for missile warning and tracking, and one for transporting data—with each layer being updated by new “tranches.”

Already, SDA has awarded contracts for more than 450 satellites across three tranches—unheard-of speed in military space, where programs can take a decade or more to launch a few large, bespoke satellites.

Along the way, Tournear has become one of the more recognizable figures in the Pentagon’s space enterprise, providing frequent updates on the agency’s progress and even taking to social media to call out internal Pentagon criticism of his style. In October 2022, SDA officially transitioned into the Space Force, becoming one of three acquisition organizations in the service.

It is unclear if Tournear’s suspension threatens to derail or slow SDA’s ambitious plans. The agency is targeting March or April for its next launch of satellites.

US, Korea, Japan Fly Together as Chinese Delegation Visits Japan

Jan. 16, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

American B-1 bombers flew alongside Japanese and South Korean fighters on Jan. 15 as Japan hosted a visiting Chinese military delegation.

The moves come just days before U.S. President Donald Trump is inaugurated, highlighting a delicate moment in the strategic environment of the Indo-Pacific.

Pacific Air Forces announced the trilateral flight, which included two Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-2s and two Republic of Korea Air Force F-15Ks each. PACAF did not specify what base the B-1s came from or if they landed in either country.

“This first trilateral flight of 2025 builds upon a history of strong trilateral cooperation, enabling an immediate coordinated response to regional security challenges,” PACAF said in a release. “This increasingly steady and sophisticated trilateral interoperability of our aerial and maritime forces strengthens our collective deterrence and defense posture.”

Two U.S. B-1B Lancers are escorted by two Republic of Korea Air Force F-15Ks Slam Eagles and two Japan Air Self-Defense Force Mitsubishi F-2s in airspace between South Korea and Japan, Jan. 15, 2025. The increasingly steady and sophisticated trilateral interoperability of the three nations’ aerial and maritime forces strengthens their collective deterrence and defense postures. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Stephanie Serrano

The U.S., Japan, and South Korea held their first ever trilateral air exercise in October 2023 and have since flown together three more times, each time with American bombers escorted by Japanese, American, and South Korean fighters.

Bilateral bomber-fighter flights between the U.S. and either Japan or South Korea have been commonplace over the years, but tensions with China and North Korea have led to closer ties between Japan and South Korea, overcoming a historically strained relationship.

The growing ties between the three countries were highlighted by a trilateral summit between the nations’ political leaders in August 2023, when they agreed to conduct more annual exercises.

Since then, however, all three countries have experienced political turmoil and change. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida left office in October amid poor approval ratings, U.S. President Joe Biden is set to leave office, and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been impeached over a declaration of martial law.

Amidst all this change, analysts have noted that China has sought to ease tensions with outreach to U.S. allies like the European Union and Japan. In particular, the Japanese government announced Jan. 14 that it was hosting a delegation from the People’s Liberation Army for the first time in years. The visit began Jan. 13 and will last until Jan. 17, with the Chinese delegation meeting their Japanese counterparts and visiting military units, according to a statement from China’s Defense Ministry.

Officials did not say what military units the Chinese delegation would visit.

The U.S. has dozens of facilities in Japan, including Yokota Air Base, Misawa Air Base, and Kadena Air Base, which also host Japanese units. Kadena in particular is located on the island of Okinawa and is the closest USAF base to Taiwan. F-35 fighters recently arrived at Kadena as part of a rotation of fighters to the base, and the 18th Wing there just concluded an Agile Combat Employment exercise with F-16 fighters.

Trump Picks NRO’s Meink as Next Air Force Secretary

Jan. 16, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

President-elect Donald Trump has picked Dr. Troy E. Meink to become the next Secretary of the Air Force, he announced Jan. 16.

Meink is currently the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a Department of Defense intelligence agency that works closely with the Space Force.

If confirmed, Meink would be the first Air Force Secretary to come to the job from the NRO in decades—Hans Mark served concurrently as Undersecretary of the Air Force and head of the NRO before becoming Air Force Secretary in 1979 and John L. McLucas served as the fourth director of the NRO before becoming Air Force Secretary in 1973.

Since then, other Air Force secretaries have had some background in space—Barbara Barrett and Edward Aldridge were both trained for space flight, Michael Wynne and John J. Welch Jr. both oversaw space divisions within defense industry, and Robert Seamans and Mark were both deputy NASA administrators.

But Meink would be unique given how deep his experience is at the intersection of defense and space. While he served in the Air Force as a KC-135 tanker navigator from 1988-1993, he spent much of his career as a civilian working for the Air Force in various space roles, including as the deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space. He has been at the NRO for years, having been appointed to his current role under the previous Trump administration.

Before becoming the NRO’s current No. 2 in 2020, Meink was the director of Geospatial Intelligence Systems Acquisition (GEOINT) at the agency and responsible for a $15 billion budget overseeing acquiring satellite systems.

Meink’s selection may be a significant boost for the Space Force—USSF leaders have said their service needs more resources and manpower to keep up with a growing mission set, as they face their first ever budget cut in 2025. Trump is seen as friendly to the Space Force, having championed its creation in his first term, and Meink would be perhaps the most space-knowledgeable senior leader in the Pentagon.

If confirmed, Meink will step on the other side of an ongoing debate between the Space Force and the NRO and other Intelligence Community agencies over roles and responsibilities for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance from space.

Beyond that, however, Meink will face major questions during the confirmation process and early in his tenure about how to handle the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance program, Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, and the over-budget and behind-schedule Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

Dr. Troy E. Meink, Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space, answers questions during a space budget briefing on March 5, 2014, at the Pentagon. U.S. Air Force photo by Scott M. Ash

The Department of the Air Force pick had been a notable hole in Trump’s planned national security team.

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army National Guard officer, is Trump’s pick to be the 29th Secretary of Defense. Hegseth had a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate on Jan. 14 and appears likely to be confirmed despite allegations of personal misconduct and intense criticism from Democrats.

“Troy will work with our incredible Secretary of Defense Nominee, Pete Hegseth, to ensure that our Nation’s Air Force is the most effective and deadly force in the World, as we secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media network Truth Social.

Meink would round out Trump’s picks for service secretaries. Trump named John Phelan, a businessman donor with an MBA from Harvard, to be Secretary of the Navy and Daniel P. Driscoll, an Army veteran and Yale Law School graduate, to lead the Army. Driscoll has been a senior advisor to fellow Yale Law grad Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.

Stephen Feinberg, financier, is Trump’s pick for Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Elbridge “Bridge” Colby has been named to lead the Pentagon’s policy shop.

News Editor Greg Hadley contributed to this report.