Pentagon Releases Selfie of U-2 Pilot With Chinese Spy Balloon

Feb. 22, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The U-2 Dragon Lady is a legendary platform in the U.S. Air Force inventory. Previous variants were created to overfly the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. The USAF’s current models continue to be a coveted surveillance asset well after newer aircraft have come and gone.

The U-2’s persistence in the fleet is due to its ability to fly crewed missions at high altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet. When a Chinese balloon entered U.S. airspace at 60,000-65,000 feet, according to U.S. officials, that capability was vital. U-2s were able to fly above the Chinese surveillance balloon and collected valuable imagery. And one of the pilots took a selfie to prove it.

Chris Pocock, an author and expert on the U-2, first posted the picture online on his website Dragon Lady Today Feb. 21.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed the image’s authenticity on Feb. 22, and the Department of Defense soon released the image.

A U.S. Air Force pilot looked down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovered over the Central Continental United States Feb. 3, 2023. Recovery efforts began shortly after the balloon was downed. Photo courtesy of the Department of Defense

“High-resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations,” a senior State Department official said Feb. 9.

The image released by the DOD shows an Air Force U-2 pilot looking down on the balloon over “Central Continental United States” on Feb. 3. The spy balloon was shot down over the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4 by an F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

U-2s can carry a variety of surveillance payloads, including advanced optical equipment, but as the selfie shows even an image captured from the U-2’s cockpit offers a unique high-fidelity look at the balloon from above. The U-2 flights also confirmed that the craft relied on large solar panels to power its sensors, the senior State Department official said. The solar panels are clearly visible in the image released Feb. 22. The balloon was up to 200 feet tall and weighed several thousand pounds according to Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the head of Northern American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM).

A U.S. military official previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the U-2 flights were in support of U.S. Northern Command with required legal authority to help the U.S. government collect intelligence on the balloon, as the U.S. military is not authorized to conduct intelligence-gathering flights over the U.S. without special permission.

The military official said other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities were also by the U.S. military to gather information on the Chinese balloon but did not provide further details.

U-2s have supported domestic operations in the past, such as the U.S. government’s response to natural disasters such as wildfires and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

U.S. officials said a silver lining of the balloon’s flight over the continental U.S. was the ability for America to collect extensive intelligence and imagery of the craft as it made its days-long trek across the U.S. before being blasted out of the air by an AIM-9X Sidewinder six miles off the coast of South Carolina.

The U-2 flights helped make the U.S. government confident that the large Chinese balloon was in American airspace for nefarious purposes, according to U.S. officials. The military has concluded recovery operations of the balloon’s debris from the ocean floor and the FBI is working to ascertain the balloon’s capabilities.

Saltzman Unveils ‘Theory of Success’ as Space Force Debates Future

Feb. 22, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Hoping to prod a debate on the Space Force’s future, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman unveiled his “Theory of Success” concept Feb. 22, as the force carves out its military role. Within this debate, he said some ambiguity is acceptable.

Now in its fourth year, the service has outlined a broad goal of space superiority as key to any future U.S. fight. That mission is clear: America’s space assets must be able to provide critical services to the U.S. military, even under attack. But more granular details on how the Space Force plans to operate in the coming years are unsettled.

“The thing about space is, luckily, we haven’t conducted a war that’s gone on in space,” Saltzman said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We have to figure space superiority out without the benefit of combat feedback. That means we’re going to have to start with a theory; we’re going to have to test it in the wargames and the exercises and the simulators of the world, and try to debate the idea and evaluate the conclusions that we draw.”

Saltzman took over as the second-ever Chief of Space Operations in November 2022. The former Air Force missileer said he intentionally hasn’t mapped everything he plans to do as CSO.

“I’ll knife fight the budget all day in the Pentagon, but I’ve lost kind of the perspective of what it means to literally operate a system in this new contested domain,” he said.

For Saltzman, nearly everything is up for debate in some form, including operational concepts, tactics, and platforms. He hopes the Space Force will welcome new ideas from inside the service, the commercial world, think tanks, and academia.

“If we don’t have some unifying principles to center on, then it really becomes an ad hoc kind of grab bag for capabilities you need to buy or build, or training that you need to give to the Guardians.”

The goal of space superiority is similar to the Air Force’s air superiority lodestar. But the Air Force has developed practical methods of achieving air superiority over decades, with tough lessons learned from conflicts such as Vietnam. With that experience, the Air Force developed specific tactics and platforms to, for example, suppress enemy air defenses to achieve its broader air superiority mission.

To achieve space superiority, the Space Force is formulating ideas such as more proliferated and cheaper satellite constellations to make its capabilities better withstand an attack and stay online. But Saltzman admits leaders in the E-Ring of the Pentagon have not yet figured everything out.

“There’s those of us that learned the old premise that the bomber will always get through,” Saltzman said. “It turns out the bomber didn’t always get through, and we had to kind of revise our thinking on how we provide airpower as an Air Force. I expect fully that our thoughts will evolve over time as we think about this theory of success—what works, what doesn’t work—as conditions change around it.”

However, Saltzman has some idea of what his “Theory of Success” will mean as he seeks to expand on his recently unveiled lines of effort: Fielding Combat-Ready Forces, Amplifying the Guardian Spirit, and Partnering to Win. To Saltzman, that means more quickly fielding up-to-date assets, fostering intellectual problem-solving Guardians, and increasing partnerships with allies, the rest of the U.S. military, and commercial companies. But Saltzman wants the future of the Space Force also defined by things the service has yet to articulate.

“There’s a lot of details to be sorted out, but I also know that the best answers are going to come from the young people that have their hands on the controls for these systems,” Saltzman said. “What I hope is that when they’re in the cafeterias, when they’re in the bars afterward, they’re talking shop. They’re talking about these concepts and they’re debating them, and they’re angry about it because they think they’ve got it right and somebody’s bringing evidence that says they’re wrong.”

Russia ‘Suspending’ New START Nuclear Arms Control Treaty, Putin Says

Feb. 21, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, the New START agreement, is in peril following a declaration by Russian president Vladimir Putin that Moscow was “suspending” Russia’s participation in the accord.

The treaty sets a limit of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads that each country can deploy. In January, the U.S. said that Russia had violated the accord by blocking on-site inspections.

The U.S. had held out the hope that Moscow would fix the violation. But Putin dug in his heels in a Feb. 21 speech in which he linked Russia’s pullback from the treaty to U.S. support for Ukraine. That has left the two sides fundamentally at odds with scant prospects for compromise.

“We’re not going to change our policy on Ukraine because he’s in a hissy fit over the New START treaty,” said Rose Gottemoeller, who was the top U.S. negotiator of the New START treaty and later served as NATO’s Deputy Secretary General from 2016-2019. “That’s just not going to happen.”

Russia has long valued the New START treaty, which entered into force in 2011 and has constrained the nuclear competition between the two sides. President Joe Biden offered to extend the accord until February 2026 soon after taking office and Russia agreed. For years, inspections have been carried out with little problem.

The on-site visits were suspended by mutual consent in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But when the U.S. sought to resume inspections in August 2022, the Russians balked. Sharp differences over the Russian invasion of Ukraine have cast a shadow over the agreement ever since.

In a statement following Putin’s remarks, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs assailed the U.S. for imposing economic sanctions on Moscow and providing military support for Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion of the country. Or as Russia put it, the U.S. has sought the “political and economic strangulation of our country.”

In suspending its participation in the treaty, Putin made clear that Russia would continue to refuse inspections. But Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it would continue to observe the treaty’s ceilings on strategic nuclear warheads and the missiles and bombers that are used to deliver them. Russia will also continue to notify the U.S. of ballistic missile launches.

It is not clear if Russia will continue to exchange data on its nuclear forces or notify changes in the status and location of strategic weapons, as the treaty requires.

A greater problem concerns the prospects for negotiating a follow-on accord for New START after the treaty expires.

After Putin’s announcement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. is “ready to talk about strategic arms limitations at any time with Russia irrespective of anything else going on in the world or in our relationship.”

But some long-time arms control advocates say that negotiating a new treaty will now be harder than ever.

“This attitude on the part of the Russians not to engage on New START and to suspend implementation means that negotiating a new agreement to supersede New START is going to be exceedingly difficult,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. “It makes it more likely that after New START expires, there will not be limits on the world’s two largest arsenals for the first time since 1972.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle strongly criticized Russia’s actions.

“The Biden administration should declare Russia to be in ‘material breach’ of the New START Treaty and direct the Joint Staff and U.S. Strategic Command to accelerate planning in the event Russia breaches New START caps,” said Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

America must not accept Putin’s gambit, some members of Congress cautioned.

“I vehemently condemn his announced ‘suspension’ of Russia’s participation in New START—the only arms control agreement between Russia and the United States that remains in force—possibly heralding the end of strategic arms control, which for more than fifty years has stabilized our nations’ nuclear relationship,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “As we work to avoid such a dangerous outcome—and resulting nuclear arms race—Putin and his cronies should have no doubt that the United States will defend our country and our allies, continuing to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to prevail.”

Slife: Before a New Force-Sizing Construct, Air Force Needs to Work On CCAs, Common Terms

Feb. 21, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Five years after the Air Force released an analysis stating it needed 386 operational squadrons to meet its obligations under the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the service has no definitive force-sizing construct.

But before it can set one, it must figure out how it will present forces to theater commanders, Lt. Gen. James C. Slife said Feb. 21. The answer to that question will depend on how the service integrates Collaborative Combat Aircraft into its combat units—but USAF is “close” to that solution, he said during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Slife, the deputy chief of staff for operations, said “unequivocally … there is an understanding that we need a force-sizing construct,” but the prerequisite to that “is a force-presentation construct.”

Here the Air Force is stymied because its definitions of what constitutes a squadron or providing a certain capability differ from those of the other services and theater commanders, Slife said. For example, the Air Force defines a squadron as 24 aircraft, but the Joint team counts a squadron as 12 airplanes. And when an AWACS capability is requested, it may be for only one aircraft, rather than a detachment of several.

“So when I talk about a force presentation construct, what is the thing that the Air Force presents to the Joint force? Is it a wing? Is it a squadron? Is it fighter squadrons? … What is the unit of measure that we that we need to adopt?” he said.

Once there’s a shared understanding of what’s to be presented, “then we can have a conversation about … how many of those things do we need and what does the force generation process imply,” Slife explained. He acknowledged that the Navy and Army already have clearly-defined ways of presenting units of capability to theater commanders.

“It’s a matter of prioritization and being transparent with the Joint force so they understand this is what we have available,” he added. The Air Force needs to “unemotionally lay out our capacity” to the combatant commanders and the rest of the Joint force.

Theater commanders also need to understand that if they need more Air Force capability, “we’re going to have to buy more Air Force, because this is all the Air Force we have.” He said he would like to see Combatant Commanders “not argue with the Air Force, but … argue for the Air Force,” in this respect.

Slife said his marching orders from Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. include leading the service “towards a force presentation construct; … the predicate to being able to talk about what our capacity, our force-sizing construct needs to be.”

Asked about the “Force We Need” level of 386 operational squadrons set in 2018—but subsequently never codified by doctrine or in budget requests—Slife called it a “starting point.”

“I’m not sure that that is the end of the conversation,” he added.

Until the presentation model is figured out, “I think it’s probably preliminary to talk about a sizing construct that goes along with that,” Slife said, allowing that 386 operational squadrons is “probably not wildly off the mark, but we won’t know until we get a little more fidelity on the on the force presentation model.”

Slife said the Air Force is also wrestling with what squadrons will look like when Collaborative Combat Aircraft enter the mix. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has notionally described a single fighter controlling up to five CCAs, but it all depends on the capability of the escort aircraft, Slife said.

“It depends on what types of CCAs we’re talking about. There may be more than one type for different roles. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be a homogenous fleet, and so, depending on the mission, it may be different.” The ratio of crewed fighters to CCAs may vary “for an air superiority mission” relative to “a SEAD [Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) mission,” he said.

“We have to … work through a lot of our conceptual work on this before we can say for sure,” he said. He expects CCAs to be “transformative in many ways” but it will take “more exercises and more [war] games … to try out that concept, see what works, what doesn’t work, where they have greatest utility and bring those capabilities … into relevant formations based on what we learned from our experimentation.”

A working hypothesis based on that analysis will be finished “sooner rather than later,” Slife predicted. But USAF is not yet ready to “put a thumbtack in that and start programming against a conceptual idea of what that squadron of the future would look like.”

Those “rigorous” wargames and analyses are needed “to find out whether … we need to adjust our hypothesis to react to what we’re finding in our in our experimentation work,” regarding the ratio of crewed to uncrewed aircraft, he said.

However, “we’ve got to make sure our thinking keeps up with the pace of technology,” which is moving rapidly in CCAs, he said.

In November 2022, Kendall told a defense conference the most recent National Defense Strategy does not set a force-sizing construct and that he does not anticipate “major changes” in the number of squadrons “anytime soon.” He said, however, that he does expect changes in “equipment and modernization.” For the Air Force, the NDS means “transforming … to what we’re going to need for the future.”

While he declined to discuss numbers, Kendall told the defense symposium that “we are doing some divestitures” to free up resources and hinted that USAF will actually get smaller in the near term. However, he said that five to 10 years “down the road … it’s possible to imagine a larger force structure.” It will depend on external factors, including how foreign militaries size themselves and the threat they pose to the U.S.

Slife said in assessing the right size and equipment for the Air Force, “it’s not just…the constant tension between mission and resources, but risk,” which he said is “often overlooked.” There’s a certain degree of risk with focusing on the current situation and having capability to deal with here-and-now threats, and also risk in focusing on the future to the decrement of current capability, he said. The Air Force is constantly seeking to balance those three concerns.

Senators Launch New Drive for Space National Guard

Feb. 21, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The push to create a new Space National Guard got a major boost last week as a bipartisan team of Senators offered new legislation—even as the Pentagon works to craft details on a competing plan.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced the Space National Guard Establishment Act on Feb. 16, joined by eight co-sponsors:

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.)

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)

The 10 backers of the bill is down from the dozen that cosponsored a similar bill in May 2022. That effort died in committee, however, and efforts to insert the measure into the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act also failed. Now Feinstein and Rubio are reintroducing the bill to a new Congress.

There are more than 1,000 members of the Air National Guard involved today in space missions, spread among seven states and one territory—Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, New York, Ohio, and Guam.

“The National Guard’s space units serve under the Air Force, which no longer has responsibility for the space mission,” Feinstein said in a statement. “They should serve under the Space Force with the rest of our space units and fix the organizational disconnect that is undermining their training, resourcing, and recruiting. Leaving the Guard’s space units under the Air Force is shortsighted and undermines our national security.”

Rubio added: “Creating a Space National Guard would boost our military readiness and increase efficiency. It would also ensure that the Space Force retains needed talent.”

The debate over creating a Space Guard has been underway since the Space Force was born in December 2019. Proponents want it to ensure Air National Guard units with space missions can retain their expertise, and argue that the cost of the change can be as little as several hundred thousand dollars for chaning name tapes, unit flags, and signs. They want Space-focused Guardsmen to be able to remain connected to their state missions, like disaster relief and humanitarian aid.

Critics—including the Biden administration—say a separate Space Guard would add layers of bureaucracy, extra cost that might run into the millions annually, and that there is no need to tie space-focused Guardsmen to state missions since the space missions they perform are federal in nature.

The House versions of the 2022 and 2023 defense authorization bills both included support for the Space Guard, but the measure did not survive the conference report either time.

Instead, the 2022 law included a requirement for a study and a report on how the Space Force should structure its reserve components, including a look at how much a Space National Guard would cost.

The Space Force has proposed what it calls the “Space Component”—a hybrid structure combining full-time and part-time Guardians. Advocates like its “lean and agile” approach and former Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond described it as the service’s “No. 1 legislative proposal” last year before he retired.

The 2023 NDAA directed the Secretary of Defense to submit a report on how the Space Component would work, including rules, regulations, and policies for allowing Guardians to move between full- and part-time duty, compete for promotion, and retire. The Space Force must also explain how to manage pay, benefits, and other factors for full- and part-time Guardians and detail changes in legislation needed to support the plan. That level of detail suggests lawmakers were leaning toward the Space Force proposals.

The Space Force report is due March 1, well in time for changes to be included in the 2024 NDAA if Congress approves.

The Department of the Air Force referred questions to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which did not immediately respond.

After N. Korea Missile Test, USAF B-1s, F-16s Fly in Allied Show of Force

Feb. 21, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters flew alongside Japanese and South Korean aircraft in separate training exercises Feb. 19, a day after North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that fell off Japan’s coast.

North Korea followed with two more ballistic missile tests, as tensions continue to mount in the region. The U.S. and South Korea have pledged more joint exercises.

The two latest bilateral exercises both included B-1B Lancers flying from Guam. The BONEs are part of a Bomber Task Force rotation out of Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., and twice previously flew alongside Republic of Korea fighters earlier this month.

USAF F-16s from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, and Republic of Korea Air Force F-35s joined the B-1s, according to U.S. Forces Korea. The ROKAF released photos showing two B-1s, four F-16s, and four F-35s, and said the aircraft flew through the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone. The ADIZ is a buffer zone that includes international airspace near the Korean Peninsula.

“The training offered the alliance an opportunity to rehearse short-notice recall missions, demonstrating the U.S.-ROK combined defense capability, and the ironclad commitment to providing extended deterrence in the defense of the Korean Peninsula,” U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement.

U.S. Japan Korea — U.S. Air Force B-1s and F-16s fly alongside ROK Air Force F-35s through the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone on Feb. 19, 2023. Photo by ROKAF

In a separate event over the Sea of Japan, the B-1s were joined by American F-16s from Misawa Air Base, Japan, as well as Japanese F-15s, U.S. Forces Japan and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force said. In a release, the Japanese Joint Staff said the exercise involved two B-1s, four F-16s, and three F-15s.

“This exercise was conducted to demonstrate our nations’ rapid reaction capabilities, high levels of force readiness, close coordination, bilateral interoperability, and credible deterrent capacity,” U.S. Forces Japan said in a statement.

Japan U.S. air exercise — U.S. Indo-Pacific Command B-1 bomber and F-16 fighter aircraft conducted a bilateral exercise with Japan Air Self-Defense Force B-15 fighter aircraft February 19, 2023, over the Sea of Japan. Photo by JASDF

A B-1 from Ellsworth previously integrated with Japanese F-15s over the Pacific during a long-duration, CONUS-to-CONUS mission in January.

Pacific Air Forces did not specify whether the same B-1s participated in both exercises Feb. 19. The Air Force has not previously stated how many B-1s were participating in the Bomber Task Force mission, but no image has indicated more than two.

North Korea’s ICBM test launch Feb. 18, its second test this year, was first reported by the Associated Press. The AP said the launch demonstrated the potential to reach the continental U.S., although the missile fell within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, some 200 kilometers from the Japanese island of Oshima.

“We are aware of the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] ballistic missile launch and are consulting closely with the Republic of Korea and Japan, as well as other regional allies and partners,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. “The United States condemns these actions and calls on the DPRK to refrain from any further unlawful and destabilizing acts. While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, or territory, or to our allies, we will continue to monitor the situation.”

INDOPACOM issued a similar statement after the subsequent missile launches early Feb. 20 local time. Those tests landed outside Japan’s economic zone.

According to state media reports, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said the DPRK’s “frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range” depends on the frequency with which U.S. forces appear in the region—an apparent response to U.S. and South Korean pledges to ramp up joint training exercises.

South Korean leaders have become increasingly vocal about the need for a nuclear deterrent on the peninsula, either U.S. nuclear weapons or arms of South Korea’s own creation. “We must first secure a concrete nuclear deterrence,” Chung Jin-suk, head of the ruling People Power party, said, according to the Yonhap news agency.

“We need to strengthen our ‘Kill Chain’ so North Korea can never rise to its feet again if it uses nukes on the Korean peninsula,” Chung added, referring to the South Korean program to target North Korea’s leadership in a contingency. “We need to seriously consider developing our own nuclear capabilities if such a response is insufficient.”

Officially, the Pentagon is still committed to its objective of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. But a recent bipartisan, independent commission of U.S. experts recommended the U.S. begin thinking about how nuclear arms might be placed in South Korea should it become necessary to change that policy.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command B-1 bomber and F-16 fighter aircraft conducted a bilateral exercise with Japan Air Self-Defense Force B-15 fighter aircraft February 19, 2023, over the Sea of Japan. Photo by JASDF

IISS: China’s Aggressive Exercises Near Taiwan are a ‘New Normal’

Feb. 17, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

China’s many exercises and bluff attack runs against Taiwan’s air and sea defenses since the visit to Taipei of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in September 2022 represent a “new normal” for the two countries, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in the 2023 edition of its annual “The Military Balance” report.

Together with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s aggressive actions offer Taipei “an opportunity to learn how to prepare for and respond to an armed attack,” the report added.

Since the Pelosi visit, the “regular air and naval incursions across the Taiwan Strait ‘median line’, which Beijing has said does not exist” have increased, and are probably calculated to both assess Taiwan’s preparedness and wear down its defenses through repeated scrambles, the IISS said. A byproduct is the opportunity to observe U.S. reactions to the threats, particularly the movement of surface and submarine forces in the area.

While the mock attacks may indeed be dress rehearsals for the real thing, they are in keeping with China’s “grey zone” activities, in which Beijing conducts coercive military operations short of physical violence, such as its “island building” campaign to create airbases in disputed waters. Such tactics will likely continue as long as they are successful, the IISS said.

In the various incursions across Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, dozens of frontline Chinese aircraft and naval vessels behaved as if they were attacking Taiwan but turned away after breaching territorial airspace and waters. In December 2022, some 39 frontline aircraft and three surface combatants were involved. Taiwanese government officials said some of the aircraft and vessels went through the motions of targeting Taiwanese and U.S. vessels in the area.

Though the exercises in August and September were ostensibly a reaction to Pelosi’s visit—Beijing objected to the high-level U.S. official’s recognition of the Taipei government—the activities “were some of the largest organized by the PLA in Taiwan’s vicinity, would have required months of planning and may have been part of Beijing’s overall drive to improve China’s military,” the report notes.

The IISS also acknowledged that the exercises may have been “adapted in light of Pelosi’s visit, or that the PLA was executing a pre-planned contingency response, or a blend of the two.”

Regardless, soon afterwards, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency “was listing a number of approved sales of defense equipment and support services to Taipei since Biden took office,” including contractor support for Taiwan’s PAVE PAWS long-range surveillance radar system, as well as additional RGM-84L Harpoon Block II coastal-defense missiles and AIM-9X Sidewinder II air-to-air missiles. However, these sales remain subject to Congressional approval.

Taiwan needs to develop a balance of conventional and asymmetric means of responding to both grey zone and “full-scale invasion threats” posed by the People’s Liberation Army, the IISS said. More importantly, Taipei needs to develop “measures to deter Beijing in a worsening political and military-security environment across the Taiwan Strait.”

Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen has outlined a response to China’s increasing belligerence, which includes:

Increasing Taiwan’s defense budget year over year
Increasing production of precision-guided missiles and naval vessels
Building means of asymmetric warfare
Increasing domestic production of aircraft
Creating a self-defense and mobilization agency, also meant to train reservists and provide for civil defense

On this last point, “lessons learned from the war in Ukraine may be more helpful than any gleaned from the post-Pelosi exercises,” the IISS noted.

“For instance, plans have been discussed to raise the duration of conscription from four months to one year. Similarly, Taipei is developing a centralized approach to civil-defense preparedness.” This area has been given inadequate attention in recent years, the IISS said, referring to it as a “bottom-up” approach rather than an overall government-led initiative.

“These efforts remain nascent and, so far, Taiwan lacks the same level of investment in civil defense that Ukraine looked to develop following Russia’s 2014 assault and annexation of Crimea,” the think tank said.

The IISS noted that U.S. officials have urged Taipei to become a “porcupine;” while it may not be able to build enough capability to defeat China in an all-out war, it could make the Chinese pay an unacceptable price for attacking Taiwan.

The think tank also noted that while President Joe Biden has “on several occasions mentioned the United States’ unequivocal military support for Taiwan in any armed attack launched by the PLA,” Taipei and the U.S. “reportedly disagree about how much focus should be placed on the development of asymmetric capabilities,” with the U.S. urging more effort along these lines.

China has begun using commercial unmanned aerial vehicles to penetrate Taiwan’s ADIZ and “conduct surveillance of islands close to the Chinese mainland.” After a few of these incursions went unchallenged, Taiwan has shot down at least one such UAV “likely in an attempt to set a precedent against further provocation,” the IISS reported.

Taiwan will upgrade its air defenses with 70 F-16 Block 70 aircraft, the most-advanced version of the Fighting Falcon, and the first example of which will be delivered to Bahrain in March. Taipei also “maintains an interest in the F-35,” but the U.S. has kept it off the table as being potentially too provocative.

“In 2022, Taiwan’s purchase of MQ-9B UAVs was confirmed,” and it has budgeted for HIMARS, ATACMS, SRBMs, and precision-guided rockets, types which either have been or are expected to be significant in the Ukraine war.

While Taiwan maintains a defense industrial base “with strengths in aerospace, shipbuilding and missiles,” a new defense industrial policy adopted in 2019 “is aimed at further strengthening independent defense-manufacturing capacities,” the IISS reported.

Space Force Seeks New Options for Launch

Feb. 17, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force is opening up competition for rocket launches with a “dual-lane approach,” potentially giving smaller companies a chance to break into the launch business, according to a new draft request for proposals released Feb. 16.

In publishing the draft RFP, Space Systems Command announced an industry day event Feb. 28-March 1 to discuss Phase 3 of its National Space Security Launch program.

Under “Lane 1” of the program, SSC will award indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contracts to multiple providers, enabling selected vendors to offer launch services beginning in fiscal 2025. The awards will cover a five-year span, with an option to renew for a second five years. To enable as many participants as possible, the Space Force will re-open the solicitation annually so that new competitors can “on-ramp” into the program.

“Lane 2,” meanwhile, is open only to launch providers that already have fully-certified launch systems. In this part of its program, SSC will award ID/IQ contracts to two launch providers capable of reaching all orbits and providing “mission unique services, launch services support, fleet surveillance, early integration studies, and special studies.”

This strategy “provides access to diverse commercially available systems, increases resiliency through alternate launch sites and streamlined integration timelines, … enables supply chain stability, and enhances affordability for the most stressing National Security Space missions,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force’s program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, in a statement.

The prior Phase 2 contracts, awarded in August 2020, went to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX and shut out challengers Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin. That contract covered launch orders through fiscal 2024, although the actual launches will take place as late as 2027.

Ever since that award, however, the Space Force has been seeking feedback on how to work with new entries to the launch market, beginning with a Request for Information to industry, seeking feedback on how it could work with launch companies of all sizes and indicating that it might establish “a research, development, test, and evaluation program to accelerate the development of transformational commercial space access, mobility, and logistics technologies that can be on-ramped when available.”

And while ULA and SpaceX are the only companies to have won NSSL launch contracts, others have emerged as eager contenders, especially for launches that only have to reach low-Earth orbit. In addition to Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, Firefly, and Virgin Orbit are all among the potential competitors for “Lane 1” contracts.

Debate over the acquisition strategy for Phase 3 reached Congress this past year. In the conference report accompanying the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers wrote that the Space Force “should account for changes in the launch industry” and urged the service to “examine all possible options for awarding contracts for launches during the period covered by the phase, including: block buys; indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity; or a hybrid approach,” in addition to other considerations.

At the same time, legislators have also pushed for the service to consider a “common launch integrator” to coordinate between the government, satellite builders, and launch providers.

While the new draft RFP outlines the Space Force’s basic approach for Phase 3, the official RFP still needs to be finalized—Space Systems Command is currently projecting that to be released in the third quarter of fiscal 2023, between April and June.

Side-by-Side: DIA Report Uses Photos to Show Russia Is Using Iranian Drones in Ukraine

Feb. 17, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

A new report from the Defense Intelligence Agency confirms the drones Russia has used to terrorize Ukrainian cities and pound the country’s infrastructure have been provided by Iran.

Russia has renamed the drones it acquired from Iran, but by drawing on declassified images and publicly available photos, the DIA report shows that Russia has carried out attacks in Ukraine with the same types of unmanned aerial vehicles Iran has used in the Middle East.

Part of what has made the drones used in Ukraine easy to link to Iran is their novel appearance.

“The Iranian-origin Shahed-136, renamed Geran-2 by the Russians, has a distinctive shape, with a delta-wing body and vertical stabilizers extending above and below the body, as displayed in Iranian press and military expos,” the DIA report noted, referring to the one-way attack drone.

“The images circulating in open press of UAVs in Ukraine clearly show the features of the Shahed-136’s delta-wing body and vertical stabilizers,” the report said.

Components of Shahed-136 drones have been recovered in Ukraine, which has enabled DIA to determine it is the same type of UAV Iran has transferred to the Houthis in Yemen and used in a 2021 attack on a merchant vessel. Engine components from drones recovered in Ukraine are of the same type used by Iranian drones, and the DIA found that a recovered Shahed-136 used in Ukraine had an Iranian-made MD-550 engine. The MD-550 is based on a German design, and its use in Iranian drones has been previously documented.

The Shahed-131, a one-way attack drone that the Russians have renamed Geran-1, is similar to the Shahed-136 but of a smaller size. The DIA noted the drones used in the Middle East and Ukraine were so similar that “some components even fractured in the same manner after impact.”

Ukraine, the report noted, also recovered a largely intact Mohajer-6 from the Black Sea. That multirole drone, the DIA said, appears to be identical to Iranian systems photographed in Iran and Iraq.

The U.S. accused Iran in October of providing the drones and sending trainers into Russia-occupied Crimea to train Russian forces on how to use them.

Iran initially denied the allegation. Tehran later claimed that the drones it sent were provided before the renewed invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But the U.S. says the drones are being provided as part of an ongoing arrangement.

In December, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby said Russia and Iran had established “a full-fledged defense partnership” that could lead to the production of drones in Russia. Iranian media has claimed Iran might even receive fighter jets from Russia.

Air Forces Central (AFCENT) commander Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich addressed his growing concern over Iran’s drone supplies at an AFA Warfighters in Action event Feb. 13.

“It’s disconcerting to me that that kind of capacity and capability is being supplied to Russia for the war in Ukraine and I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” Grynkewich said. “Russians are going to continue to want to purchase those drones. The Iranians are going to continue to want to sell them.”

In addition to fueling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Grynkewich expressed concerned Iran’s military capabilities in the Middle East will grow due to its partnership with Russia.

“The other interesting dynamic is in a way it is flipped,” Grynkewich said. “Who is the client state and who is the benefactor? I never thought that I would see when Russia was beholden in some way to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but that is kind of the dynamic that you have.”

Yet another worry is that the military collaboration between Russia and Iran will lead to closer coordination between Russia and Iranian forces in Syria, where the U.S. still has about 900 troops to support the ongoing fight against remnants of the Islamic State as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

“Both the Russians and the Iranians are trying to maintain or gain a bigger foothold,” Grynkewich said. “We haven’t seen that kind of cohesion between the two sides come together yet, but I think it’s only natural at some point that those kinds of conversations will be going on their side.”