How to Talk About a Potential War with China

Feb. 1, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Mike Minihan generated international headlines when a memo to his Airmen in which he suggested the U.S. “will fight in 2025” with China leaked to the media. In the days that followed, national security experts and even Airmen themselves have split on the message, with some praising Minihan for his plain talk and others worrying that he needlessly turned up tensions with his rhetoric.

Former National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien wrote on Twitter that Minihan’s memo “demonstrates solidarity with the men & women he leads by telling them the truth that all of us at the senior level know but few are willing to utter. He should be commended.”

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, praised Minihan in a LinkedIn post, saying he “should be commended for the clarity in which he delivers his messages, sense of urgency, and speaking as a warfighter—not a bureaucrat, politico, or academic.”

In an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine, Deptula deemed Minihan’s memo “wholly appropriate,” and a necessary reminder for AMC Airmen, who are responsible for all the Air Force’s cargo and refueling missions.

“Air Mobility Command is a combat-oriented command,” Deptula said. “Its day-to-day airlift missions often appear more like a commercial airline mission than an organization in the thick of flying and fighting. But the point that Minahan was making is the violence of combat comes quickly. And he wants his crews to be thinking about that and ready to support delivering devastating consequences to the enemy in a very hostile environment.”

AMC is not immune to danger, he said citing the noncombatant evacuation out of Afghanistan in August 2021 that involved hundreds of C-17 flights in and out of hostile territory, and the Vietnam War, when the Air Force lost more than 100 mobility aircraft.

Minihan was rightly “trying to instill this perspective on his Airmen, that they need to be thinking about what’s necessary to succeed in combat against our pacing threat and raise that awareness that it’s not business as usual in that this possibility could come sooner rather than later.”

Notably, Minihan’s comments are consistent with those of others who have sounded alarm over China, ranging from Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael M. Gilday, who said in October the U.S. should prepare to fight in 2022 or 2023. In 2021, Adm. Phil Davidson, then head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, predicted China might take military action against Taiwan by 2027—a timeline some have since dubbed “the Davidson window.”

Minihan was “doing what we pay general officers to do,” Deptula said—that is, “to motivate and prepare their forces, and to get them thinking about the potential threats that we face.”

Some lawmakers have also lauded the memo, praising Minihan for characterizing the situation with China in stark terms. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the chair of a new House Select Committee focused on competition with China; and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, all supported the general.

Rep. Gallagher's statement on General Minihan's memo, which directs urgent action to better prepare for the near-term threat to Taiwan. pic.twitter.com/n5RsLEpvA1
— Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) January 28, 2023

Predictably, however, others have been critical. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the HASC, said on TV that he worries “when anyone starts talking about war with China being inevitable.” Generals, he added, “need to be very cautious about saying we’re going to war.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, echoed that concern. “We’re awfully cavalier about this idea that we might fight China, right?” said O’Hanlon, a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We’re talking about World War III. …That’s a not a way we can afford to think, because if this war happens, we’ve already lost.”

Generals sometimes do get called out for their word choices, with retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis having drawn particular criticism in the past. In this case, O’Hanlon said, China’s growing nuclear arsenal and military might calls for increased “strategic sophistication.”

“It was one thing when Jim Mattis said it about the Taliban,” O’Hanlon said. They and al-Qaida “did not have nuclear weapons and did not pose existential threats to the United States and potentially could be defeated or at least contained on a battlefield. It’s entirely something else to say this about the world’s number one rising power with several hundred nuclear weapons and a central place in the entire world economy.”

When officers become generals, they “are no longer just technical facilitators of the application of lethal military power—that’s no longer their only job,” O’Hanlon said. Though Minihan’s memo was intended for an internal audience of Airmen, O’Hanlon said its public impact after its leak shows why generals should exercise caution when crafting broad messages.

“Damage has been done, because the Chinese have read it and probably taken it as a window into our thinking,” O’Hanlon said. “And to the extent they believe that the United States has settled on a paradigm of the inevitability of a U.S.-China war, that could affect their crisis decision making and make them more inclined to escalate if they think the war is going to sort of happen anyway.”

Others commenting on social media suggested the AMC commander was saber-rattling. Replying to Deptula’s LinkedIn post, Air National Guard Brig. Gen. Walt L. Moddison cited poor performance by U.S. forces in past war games as reason to tone down such comments. Moddison declined an interview request, saying he was speaking for himself and not his organization.

Elsewhere on popular unofficial social media sites, Airmen have responded to Minihan’s memo with a mixture of debate and memes, with some arguing that the focus on a near-term war with China takes attention away from problems such as retention and maintenance on aging fleets.

But Gallagher, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer, said recent world events show the pressing nature of preparing for a fight with China.

“If we’ve learned anything from Ukraine, it’s that we need to take our adversaries at their word when they
threaten their neighbors and put hard power in their way before it’s too late,” Gallagher said in a statement. “General Minihan should be commended for directing his Airmen to take the threat seriously and preparing with the urgency that the situation demands.”

Hinote Urges Defense Innovation Board to Find Incentives for Faster Technology Development

Feb. 1, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

As the Defense Department engages commercial entities to speed innovation, cultural and structural differences between government and the private sector continue to be the biggest hurdle to rapidly deploying new technology, the head of Air Force Futures told the influential Defense Innovation Board at a recent meeting.

“It’s not an access to innovation problem that we’re dealing with, it’s an innovation adoption problem,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, noting a number of barriers he’s experienced in recent years. “I’ve witnessed each of these [barriers] stifle innovation on behalf of the bureaucracy and at the expense of tomorrow’s warfighter.”

Hinote made his remarks at the end of a two-day meeting of the new Defense Innovation Board. Chaired by Michael Bloomberg, the nine-member board includes academics, technology professionals, and other experts who advise DOD on emerging technology and innovation and how to promote military technological dominance. Among its members are former assistant secretary of the Air Force Will Roper and retired Adm. Michael Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Passionate but positive, Hinote urged the board to identify incentives throughout the acquisition world that can speed technology development in a culture rife with bureaucratic roadblocks.

He said he’s witnessed leaders from three different administrations come in with a sense of urgency, only for that dynamic to not permeate through the bureaucracy. “Having the lack of sense of urgency in the middle is deadly, and that’s what it has been for us,” Hinote said.

One particular area Hinote focused on was risk timelines, noting that DOD’s actions are based on near-term risks, in contrast to its stated focus. Hinote also said there is a strong tendency to focus on “old ways” instead of new ones.

“There are a lot of soft vetoes in our department … and at any one point, there are so many different people, offices, interests that can block an action,” Hinote said. “They can’t start an action; they can’t initiate or get an action through, but they can block, and that’s a fact of life in this department that makes it very difficult to keep going.”

He added that there’s also a strong “not-invented-here culture,” where there can be competition between internal and external science and technology sectors. And while some competition between sectors can be good, Hinote added, it can be challenging when the timelines of a company differ from the government’s budget timelines.

It’s a particular issue with small startups whose fast-paced innovation might be perfect for DOD, but the startup must fund itself for multiple years until the budget process catches up with them. On top of that budget process, he added, is a lack of trust between the executive and legislative branches, particularly when looking at finding flexibility on how money is spent.

“At some point, we’re going to have to explore what types of transparency we need to get our congressional stakeholders semi-comfortable with the type of flexibility that we know we have to get to,” Hinote said. “And I think that involves a flexibility in intellectual property that we have not seen yet.”

In challenging the board to map out incentives, he emphasized the need to tap more into intellectual property and use it to scale.

For example, Hinote suggested that in critical times of need, if U.S. forces have good technology and an ally has good manufacturing capability, “it is in the national interest to release the intellectual property, give it to the partner and let them build the weapons, because at the moment, we are not able to build enough weapons fast enough,” he said.

Ultimately, Hinote said, the conversation must change, because oftentimes there’s little incentive to push technology boundaries, increase the speed of a bureaucratic process, or take risks.

“I don’t believe this is impossible; I don’t believe that people want to watch innovation flounder in our department,” he said. “But the incentives are structured in a way that makes it darn impossible, and until we call it out, I just don’t see how it gets better.”

In another brief to the board, Jason Rathje, director of the Office of Strategic Capital and co-founder and former director of AFWERX’s AFVentures division, insisted the government must do more to increase capital access for innovators.

With so many American companies investing and developing capabilities in science and technology, boosted by cooperation with academia, there has been world-class advancement in critical areas, Rathje said. But there needs to be a next step—to provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to have their technologies support national security goals.

Rathje added that OSC is looking at two new strategies to promote private investment as a national security tool: syndication and leverage.

“Syndication is a strategy that simply partners with private capital providers to co-invest in new technology efforts to help scale the business is we help scale the technology,” he said. “What leverage does is it lowers the cost of capital; private investors can make patient capital investments that are required, at the sizes that they’re required to invest, in deep technology companies.”

Rathje also celebrated the OSC’s partnership with the Small Business Administration and working with the Small Business Investment Company program. SBIC provides investment opportunities to technology companies in their early stages by leveraging the Federal Credit Program.

“The way these investment funds work is that we can license new limited partnerships that are vertically focused on deep technology areas,” he said. “We can provide two dollars of leverage, two dollars of debt, for every dollar of private capital that is raised.”

The SBIC initiative began in December, and Rathje said they hope to begin receiving applications for the initiative by mid-year. In addition, OCS will soon publish its inaugural investment strategy, which will review critical technology sectors and provide assessments regarding capital availability.

CBO Estimates $15-18 Million Cost Per ARRW Hypersonic Missile

Feb. 1, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The unit cost of a missile “similar to” the Air Force’s AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) hypersonic missile would be about $15 million a copy over a large production run, but a comparable Army ground-launched system would cost almost three times more, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.

In “U.S. Hypersonic Weapons and Alternatives,” the CBO said that a program “similar to” ARRW—which has now reached the phase of testing an all-up operational round—would cost $14.9 million each over a run of 300 missiles. Adding in platform integration and 20 years of sustainment, CBO estimates a program cost of $5.3 billion, not including development. The CBO used “similar to” because actual performance and costs are classified.

To reach its estimates, the CBO said it used the Army ATACMS missile, comparable to the ARRW in size and complexity, as a basis. It said it relied on “publicly available data” and no classified information in developing its estimates.

If only 100 ARRW-like missiles are bought, the unit cost would be $18 million a copy, and with sustainment and integration, the program cost would be $2.2 billion.

The CBO estimates the ARRW, which it describes as a “medium range” hypersonic missile, would have a reach of 1,000 kilometers, or about 620 miles, and travel at an average speed of Mach 7. The ARRW is a product of Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control unit, with heavy input from the Skunk Works advanced development products division.

However, an Army system “similar” to its Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon—like ARRW, a boost-glide hypersonic missile, but with longer range—would cost $41 million per round across a production run of 300 missiles, and with platform integration and 20 years of sustainment, would cost $17.9 billion for the program.

The LRHW, built by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, would have a range of about 3,000 kilometers, or 1,860 miles, and travel at a speed of about Mach 10, the CBO said.

The CBO did not estimate comparable unit costs for the Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, which will be an air-breathing, scramjet-powered air-launched missile. The HACM contract was awarded to Raytheon and Northrop last September, and the CBO said the program is not yet mature enough to make meaningful cost estimates.

While the ARRW is intended to be carried by the B-52 and possibly the B-1 bombers, the HACM is meant to be carried by fighter-sized aircraft.

An inventory of 300 ARRWs, “would allow for more than 65 B-52 missions with four missiles each,” the CBO noted.

The comparison between the Air Force and Army programs is relevant because Army leaders have in recent years said the service is ready to share in—if not take over—the deep-strike mission using hypersonic weapons. Deep strike has traditionally—under the Key West agreements dividing roles and missions of the services—been an Air Force responsibility with long-range bombers.

The CBO report contrasted the fact that Army hypersonic missiles need a safe ground launch site, while Air Force bombers can launch from an unpredictable position, although the Air Force would have to launch the ARRW closer to the intended target.

The CBO listed the costs and capabilities for various combinations of hypersonic weapons in order to provide Congress with context for making choices about which weapons to fund in coming budget deliberations.

In comparison to hypersonic weapons, the cost of the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile—Extended Range (JASSM-ER)—a stealthy missile with a range of 1,000 km that travels at a far slower speed, is about $1.4 million per round.

Despite the high cost per shot of hypersonic missiles, the CBO said there may be military value in being able to strike extremely high-value targets from thousands of miles away with a flight time of only 15-30 minutes. Such strikes could also be useful in the early stages of a conflict.

Compared to ballistic missiles with maneuvering warheads, hypersonic weapons would also enjoy somewhat better survivability, because ballistic missiles have a more predictable trajectory while hypersonic missiles can maneuver throughout their flight through the atmosphere.

However, there are substantial technological challenges still to overcome before hypersonic missiles are deployable, the CBO noted. The “fundamental” remaining challenge is “managing the extreme heat that hypersonic missiles are exposed to by traveling at high speeds through the atmosphere.” Surface temperatures of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit requires “shielding hypersonic missiles’ sensitive electronics, understanding how various metals perform, and predicting aerodynamics” at such high temperatures.

Since 2019, the Pentagon has spent more than $8 billion on hypersonic missiles, the CBO said, and the Defense Department plans to spend another $13 billion on the technology across the fiscal 2023-2027 future years defense plan, with yet another $2 billion earmarked for production of Army and Air Force weapons, as “the Navy has not yet requested procurement funding for the hypersonic missile it is developing.”

F-35s Deploy to Greenland for First Time, Operate from Thule

Jan. 31, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Four Air Force F-35s deployed to Thule Air Base in Greenland in January, operating from the U.S.’s northernmost base for the first time.

The fifth-generation fighters landed at Thule as part of the latest iteration of Operation NOBLE DEFENDER, a series of drills held every few months by North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The most recent exercise ran from Jan. 15-31.

The F-35s flew into Thule from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, according to a NORAD release. Photos show them on a dark, snow-covered flightline, Jan. 16 and Jan. 26. Thule operates in constant darkness in the winter, and temperatures ranging from –34 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit in January.

The deployment of the F-35s showcases “the agility of capabilities in support of Arctic defense with support from the Kingdom of Denmark to allow air defense operations from this location,” NORAD said in a statement.

F-35s Greenland — Pilots and ground crew prepare F-35A Lightning II aircraft deployed to Thule Air Base, Greenland, to take off on sorties during Operation NOBLE DEFENDER 23-2.1 Jan. 16, 2023. Department of Defense photo by Master Sgt. Benjamin Wiseman

In addition to the F-35s, 10 other aircraft participated in the bilateral American and Canadian exercise: three CF-18s, four KC-135s, one CC-150, one E-3, and one CH-149.

In addition to Thule, American and Canadian forces participating in the exercise deployed to Iqaluit Forward Operating Location, Nunavut; and 5 Wing Goose Bay, Labrador. About 225 personnel took part in the exercise, intended as a dynamic force employment operation.

According to NORAD, the CF-18s took off from Iqaluit Forward Operating Location and concluded the exercise by simulating an intercept of a U.S. B-52 bomber, then escorting it “as it was transiting through northern Canada and the central United States.”

“Our ability to operate in the Arctic is critical to our ability to defend our homelands,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said. “Operation NOBLE DEFENDER successfully demonstrated our willingness and capability to conduct operations above the Arctic Circle in even the harshest weather conditions, and proved a concept of integration with key Arctic partners to defend northern approaches to North America.”

The Air Force has long planned for the F-35 to operate in extreme weather conditions like those it faced in Greenland and at its home station at Eielson, though there have been some hiccups along the way.

Their presence in the Arctic comes as the U.S. continues to face growing threats in the region, where U.S. forces may find themselves in close proximity to Russian forces. The region is increasingly seen as an area of strategic importance to China, as well.

There will likely be more F-35s in the Arctic in the years to come. Norway and Denmark already have the Lockheed Martin-made fighter, and Finland is scheduled to receive the jets in the next few years. Canada also signed a deal for 88 F-35s, with deliveries slated to begin in 2026.

Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornets from 3 Wing Bagotville take-off from the Iqaluit airport during Operation Noble Defender in the Canadian Arctic region, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, Jan. 27, 2023. Photo courtesy of Canadian NORAD Region Public Affairs

‘Backdoor’ to Attack Satellites: CSO Sees Cyber Risks in Space Force Ground Systems

Jan. 31, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force and the Pentagon have put considerable effort into making proliferating satellite constellations to make them more resilient against attack, but the ground stations and networks that communicate with those satellites pose a “backdoor” risk through which adversaries could potentially attack space capability, said Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman.

Speaking with reporters Jan. 31 at the Pentagon, Saltzman said vulnerabilities in ground systems highlight the extent to which space and cyber warfare are interconnected—a key lesson he’s drawn from the Russian-Ukraine war.

“Satellites in space are not useful if the linkages to them and the ground network that moves the information around and communicates with the satellites is not assured, is not capable, is not accessible,” Saltzman said. “We’ve witnessed some cyber activity that has hurt satellite operations. … When we think about satellite operations, if we’re not thinking about cyber protection of our ground networks, then we may have a backdoor, if you will, to negate satellite operations without counter-satellite operations.”

China and Russia’s counter-satellite capabilities have received scrutiny in recent years, from Russia’s direct-ascent anti-satellite missile test to China’s satellites with robotic arms that can “grapple” with other satellites. U.S. officials have begun warning those two countries could turn space into the next battlefield.

But the importance of ground networks hasn’t been lost on military space leaders. In May 2022, the Space Development Agency awarded a $324 million contract to General Dynamics Mission Systems to establish the ground operations and integration segment of Tranche 1 of what was then called the National Defense Space Architecture, but is now dubbed the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.

At the time, an SDA official said the award as “really is the most critical element of Tranche 1,” noting that “without a ground segment, our space vehicles orbiting around the Earth can’t really do what we need them to do. They can do things autonomously, but really in order to make things work as a complete network, as a complete enterprise, you really do need the ground segments to manage the enterprise and the mesh and the control of the space layer.”

Around the same time, Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of Space Operations Command, warned that “cyberspace is the soft underbelly of our global space networks.”

In May 2022, Saltzman told reporters that those worrying solely about the Russians shooting down satellites are “missing the bigger picture,” and that the Space Force would need to establish its own component within U.S. Cyber Command, as it has recently with other combatant commands.

Saltzman cited several other lessons he is drawing from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the criticality of space to functions like command and control, and the importance of commercial space assets for things like connectivity or satellite imaging.

And he tied one more lesson back to the three lines of effort he recently released to Guardians and his overall focus on “combat credible forces.”

“High-quality equipment alone doesn’t make you successful,” Saltzman noted. “If you don’t have the training, the logistics, sustainability, the operational concepts to operate multi-domain axes—I think the Russians on paper had very good equipment, but they didn’t necessarily have the sustainment behind it, they certainly didn’t have logistics. And so this is … a comprehensive look at what it means to put a force on the field is going to be effective.”

Saltzman has emphasized the importance of the Space Force maturing its own training and operational concepts and said his other lines of effort are focused on “Amplifying the Guardian Spirit” and “Partnering to Win.” But he said Jan. 31 that he would not dictate how Guardians should go about pursuing those LOEs.

“We’re trying to … strike a different tone with those Guardians that are out there, the commanders that are out there in the field, that have to actually execute the operations. … I’m not going to be prescriptive,” Saltzman said. “I’m saying this is generally what I think is important. You tell me what activities you’re currently doing that supports these efforts, and let’s make sure we’re on the right track and they’re properly resourced and your timelines are consistent with how fast we need them.”

Saltzman said he wants Guardians to speak up share their thinking about “opportunities you’re not taking advantage of, or things that you need to be doing differently or that you don’t want to do so that you can realign your activities.”

The idea of his C-notes and other means of reaching out to share his thinking with the field is not to dictate how things should be accomplished, but rather set the mark of what needs to be accomplished. “I really want this to be a feedback from the field rather than a top-down prescriptive plan,” he said.

Russia in Violation of New START Nuclear Treaty, US Says

Jan. 31, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Russia has violated the landmark New START treaty that cut long-range nuclear arms by refusing to allow on-site inspections, the State Department said Jan. 31.

Despite tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s war in Ukraine, the U.S. had previously said New START was holding up. But without on-site inspections, the U.S. cannot precisely verify the number of warheads Russia has deployed, which has made assessing Moscow’s compliance with the accord more difficult.

The State Department noted, however, that the number of deployed warheads was likely under the treaty ceiling of 1,550 at the end of 2022 and that if Russia had exceeded the limit in earlier months, the number was not militarily significant.

The State Department report to Congress marks the first time that the U.S. has alleged that Russia has violated the accord since it took effect in 2011. The treaty has been extended to 2026, and Russia’s refusal to allow inspections and to meet with American officials to discuss compliance issues has fueled doubts about the possibility of negotiating a follow-on agreement that would put guardrails on the nuclear competition between Washington and Moscow.

“We have long supported strategic arms control with Russia, voting for New START in 2010 and advocating for the Treaty’s extension during both the Trump and Biden administrations,” said a statement by U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Mark Warner (D-Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “But to be very clear, compliance with New START treaty obligations will be critical to Senate consideration of any future strategic arms control treaty with Moscow.”

Republican lawmakers expressed concern that Russia’s refusal to allow inspections under New START might be followed by more significant violations of the accord and said the U.S. should be ready to make upward adjustments in its own arsenal.

“We urge President Biden to direct the Department of Defense to prepare for a future where Russia may deploy large numbers of warheads, well in excess of New START Treaty limits,” read a statement from Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee: Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces; and U.S. Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Until 2020, inspections had been carried out routinely. But in March of that year, inspections were paused by mutual consent due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the U.S. told Russia in the summer of 2022 that it wanted to resume inspections, Moscow resisted.

Russia continued to argue that the COVID-19 protocols were still an obstacle. Russia’s real reason for denying inspections, the State Department report said, “centered on Russian grievances regarding U.S. and other countries’ measures imposed on Russia in response to its unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”

The absence of inspections isn’t the only compliance issue. The U.S. sought to discuss compliance issues in the treaty’s Bilateral Consultative Commission, which is a forum for the countries to discuss the treaty’s implementation. Russia initially agreed to a meeting of the commission in November, but then balked. The State Department said that is another issue of Russian “noncompliance.”

Russian officials have told the U.S. they still support the treaty, and U.S. officials are urging Russia to correct its violations so the treaty can be preserved.

“The United States remains ready to work constructively with Russia to fully implement the New START Treaty,” a State Department spokesperson said.

Austin: US-South Korea Military Exercises Will Ramp Up, Including Bomber and Fighter Missions

Jan. 31, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. will step up its military exercises with South Korea to include expanded use of air assets such as fifth-generation fighters and strategic bombers, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said during a visit to Seoul on Jan. 31.

The comments are the latest effort by the U.S. to signal its commitment to South Korean security, amid increased concern from South Korean leaders after North Korea conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests in 2022. North Korea is expected to conduct another nuclear test in the coming months, according to Washington and Seoul.

That concern has led some in South Korea to suggest it should conduct nuclear drills with America or even pursue its own nuclear weapons program. During his visit, Austin reiterated the U.S.’s longstanding policy goal of denuclearizing the entire Korean Peninsula.

But under leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has done the opposite, instead stepping up its missile testing, including long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles. Kim has also said North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons, and North Korea recently flew drones that penetrated South Korean airspace.

In response to North Korea’s threats, Austin reiterated that the so-called “extended deterrence” America provides South Korea “includes the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including our conventional, nuclear, and missile defense capabilities.”

South Korea, officially called the Republic of Korea, has sought reassurances from Washington regarding extended deterrence, including that the policy includes America’s nuclear capabilities.

“The U.S. commitment to the defense of Korea is ironclad,” Austin said at a joint press conference with South Korean defense minister Lee Jong-sup. “You heard us say that a number of times, but that’s just not a slogan; it is what we’re all about.”

After a lull in exercises between the two countries under President Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. has started to ramp up drills with South Korea again, recently deploying fifth-generation F-22 and F-35s fighters, B-52 strategic bombers, and the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group in exercises.

While North Korean officials have accused those drills of being provocative, Austin and Lee said the drills were necessary and would only increase, both as a signal of U.S. and South Korean resolve and to maintain the two countries’ “Fight tonight” readiness motto.

“Over the past year, our two countries have made great progress in deepening our cooperation,” Austin said.

The U.S. and South Korea also pledged to hold a “tabletop” exercise in February on how they might respond to nuclear weapons use from North Korea—an event that the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review says would “result in the end of the Kim regime.” Austin said the exercise would ensure Washington and Seoul saw “eye-to-eye” on the issue.

In a joint statement, Austin and Lee said increased U.S. and South Korean military exercises have been productive, despite North Korea’s protests, and noted they will not let up. Further exercises will increase in “level and scale” to include more bomber and fighter missions.

America and South Korea pledged to “continue to deploy U.S. strategic assets in a timely and coordinated manner in the future,” referencing the productivity of the air exercises, according to the joint statement.

“You can look for more of that kind of activity going forward,” Austin said.

Saltzman: ‘We’re in a Race to Build Combat Credibility Before We’re Put to the Test’

Jan. 30, 2023 | By Tobias Naegele

The Space Force must transition from delivering behind-the-scenes support to playing a more active role in which space capabilities are continuously tested and contested—and it must do so in as short a time as possible, said Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman in a weekend address to Air & Space Forces Association field leaders.

“We’re in a race to build combat credibility before we’re put to the test,” he said. “From the competition phase through crisis and conflict, the Space Force is a critical element of the joint force and plays a vital role in integrated deterrence. … We have a responsibility to secure the space domain to defend U.S. service members in harm’s way. We must contest to control the space domain, or else those service members will be at unacceptable risk of attack.”

Adversaries are posing threats to U.S. capabilities in space but also leveraging commercial space capabilities against America and its allies, Saltzman said.

“Did you know that the Iranians were using commercial space based ISR to help with the targeting and the missile attack they conducted against U.S. bases in Iraq?” Saltzman said.

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Chinese firm for providing space-based radar imagery to the Wagner group, the Russian mercenary force that has recently increased its operations in Ukraine. Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co., also called Spacety China, have provided Terra Tech synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery to Wagner for locations in Ukraine.

“The takeaway is that, going forward, the joint force is going to have to think through what operating under persistent ISR it looks like,” Saltzman said. The Space Force must be able to challenge those capabilities, he added, “to find ways to protect the joint force from this space-enabled attack.”

Saltzman’s primary focus since becoming CSO has been operationalizing the Space Force, focusing more on threats, threat response, and countering adversary actions. This, he said, is a continuous process.

“There’s no magic day in the future when we declare, ‘We’ve arrived, we’re ready to respond,’” he said. “It’s a spectrum of readiness that begins today. And every day that goes by, we will improve our ability.”

Lines of Effort

Saltzman defined three lines of effort recently in his first three “C-Notes.” These direct communications to all members of the Space Force, both military and civilian, are inspired by another young service chief from a different time and domain—Navy Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., who became Chief of Naval Operations on July 1, 1970, almost a year to the day after Saltzman was born, wrote a series of 121 direct communications with Navy personnel over his four years as CNO. Known as “Z-grams,” he used these notes to build trust and understanding in Navy leadership and to open a dialog with Sailors.

Saltzman’s intial C-Notes—short for CSO notes—aren’t as specific as many of Zumwalt’s Z-grams, many of which initiated significant policy directives on everything from leave regulations to race relations, but they do open up his view of issues Guardians are talking about and wrestling with daily.

“First and foremost, we must field resilient, ready, combat-credible forces,” he said Jan. 28. “Each of these descriptors is important and must be clearly understood. A resilient force is one that can withstand, fight through ,and recover from attacks. A ready force has the trained personnel, equipment, and sustainment capacity to accomplish missions and tasks in a high intensity operational environment. And a combat credible force has demonstrated the ability to conduct offensive and defensive operations against an adversary. All three are important.”

Saltzman said it will take both technology and the trained, ready people who operate that technology to achieve the military’s objectives. “Technology makes space operations possible. But the Space Force does not present technology systems or capabilities to the joint force, we present Space Forces. … As the Russian military in Ukraine is showing us right now, a high-tech weapon system will be operationally ineffective” without the trained personnel and sustainment systems needed to execute the mission.

“Let me offer a few observations about this war, looking at it through a spacepower lens,” Saltzman added. “First, it’s clear that space is viewed as a critical enabler to both militaries [in the conflict in Ukraine]. Both sides have attacked SATCOM capabilities to degrade command and control, and there’s been a concerted effort to interfere with GPS to reduce its effectiveness in the region.

“Second, the clear connection between space and cyber became apparent with a Russian cyber attack against a commercial satellite communications network used by the Ukraine’s military.

“Third, the value of proliferated constellations and commercial augmentation was clearly demonstrated with Ukrainian integration of SpaceX’s Starlink SATCOM system. Acquiring access to this system enhanced the Ukrainian [command and control] structure and it’s proven much harder to target and degrade than previous systems.

“And finally, we’ve observed that even the best—and this may be the most important point—even the best military equipment does not ensure success on the battlefield. A modern military must have well trained operators, well-rehearsed multi-domain operations, effective tactics, and robust logistics and sustainment.”

Yet what’s been seen in Russia’s war in Ukraine is only a glimpse of the kind of challenges that could lay ahead: “The Chinese have multiple ground-based lasers, numerous jammers targeting wide swaths of SATCOM frequencies and GPS,” Saltzman said. “Both Russia and China have invested in cyber capabilities which threaten our ground networks. … Anywhere the Space Force operates, there are threats. And these threats can attack across multiple domains and multiple attack vectors.”

China’s space capabilities are now integrated into its other systems, tying together 290 ISR satellites, 49 precision-navigation-and-timing satellites, and “a growing number of rapid response launch capabilities.”

To counter all that, the Space Force is rapidly developing new capabilities, but Saltzman’s focus is most on the people who must operate those future systems.

“Are the operators ready to employ them?” he asked. “Do they understand the tactics? Do they have a place to train and practice? Or are they just going to be thrown onto the floor and say, ‘Do the best you can when the adversary shows up?’”

Saltzman is challenging his small force of about 8,000 Guardians to consider what they need in the way of doctrine, infrastructure, and organizations, and to more fully imagine and define what it means to be combat-credible in the future.

“We tend to think about the global nature of space operations,” he said, noting that the responsibility for the entire space domain belongs with the unified U.S. Space Command. “But let’s talk about regional space. Let’s talk about more localized space. … Let’s talk about missile warning. I think most people would say missile warning is a global enterprise, right? You have satellites spread around the ring. They’re monitoring the whole earth, from Colorado, and when they get a missile event, they process it and they disseminate it back out to the warfighters.”

But to get that information to the right people so they can get out of harm’s way and defend themselves is not what U.S. Space Command does, Saltzman pointed out. The warnings might go to a regional Air Operations Center, but from there they need to get to the far-flung organizations that work with the AOC. “What about the FOBs and FARPs?” he asked, referring to forward operating bases and refueling points. “How do they get missile warning?”

That’s where the new service components that the Space Force has been standing up come into play—the first stood up under U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in November, and others have since been established in Korea and at U.S. Central Command. These organizations help grease the wheels of communication between the services and their component commands.

“The space component has a responsibility to make sure that the missile warning track that gets to the AOC now gets to every single person that needs it,” Saltzman said. “That’s a very dynamic environment. FOBs and FARPs are changing constantly.”

The Air Force’s focus on Agile Combat Employment, in which forces move dynamically to different operating locations to be less predictable and more complicated for adversaries to target makes that a an even more fluid, complex task.

“We are bouncing forces around continuously to keep our enemies guessing where our forces can be and that doesn’t stop a missile warning architecture from having to give get them missile warning data wherever they are,” Saltzman said. “Space Command can’t do that, … there’s too many of them. So you need space experts who understand procedurally and architecturally how to provide this warning to everybody that needs it.”

Air Force ROTC Unveils Sweeping New Scholarship for Older Cadets

Jan. 30, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force last week announced an expansive new ROTC scholarship available to third- and fourth-year Cadets intent on commissioning, with the goal of recruiting and retaining more future Airmen in the program.

The Brig. Gen. Charles A. McGee Leadership Award, named after the legendary Tuskegee Airman, provides either $18,000 per year in tuition or $10,000 per year in housing assistance to any Cadet not already on a scholarship who has completed field training and entered the Professional Officer Course by the start of their junior year. This is the point at which Cadets incur a service obligation.

“What it really boils down to is that every one of our Cadets now has an opportunity to get some type of scholarship—whether it’s a four-year scholarship, or … that two-year scholarship, the Charles McGee Leadership Award, to finish up their education,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told Air & Space Forces Magazine following a Jan. 27 ceremony introducing the award at the University of Maryland. This “not only helps them, but it helps us,” he added.

“For those that really desire to serve, they now have a chance to finish their education and continue their development to become either an Air Force officer or Space Force officer,” Brown said.

The new scholarship is part of what Air Force officials called a “rebalancing” of the ROTC scholarship programs—fewer awards will go to high school students and more will go to those who are already there and have demonstrated a further interest and intent to serve.

Cadets who receive four-year scholarships out of high school can drop out of ROTC program after their freshman year without needing to pay back funds, and sophomores not on scholarship do not incur a service obligation. By delaying more scholarships, the Air Force aims to deliver more funding to those who have the greatest likelihood of serving.

The Air Force typically selects around 75 percent of Cadets to attend field training after their sophomore year.

Already some 500 Cadets have activated the scholarship, according to Lt. Col. Kim Bender, spokeswoman for Air University. Prior to the introduction of the new award, only 40 percent of AFROTC Cadets received scholarships, almost all to high school seniors.

“You don’t sign your contract until you go into your junior and senior year,” Brown said. “And in some cases, if you didn’t have the money to go to school, you really wanted to continue in ROTC, but you don’t have the money to finish your education.”

It’s still too early to say exactly how many Cadets will be able to continue in ROTC because of the new scholarship, Brown said. But there are such cases, he said, and “now they don’t have to worry about, ‘Will I have enough money to come back to school at a later date?’”

Meanwhile, other Cadets have cobbled together funds to stay in school, working part-time jobs or taking out loans. The scholarship will have a significant impact for them as well.

“A lot of us are either working multiple jobs or trying to pay off student loans, and this is just a huge step forward,” Cadet William Fraher told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Not only is this helping us as Air Force Cadets to be better prepared going into the Air Force, this opens the door for internships, career opportunities that we might not have had, just because we were so focused on trying to pay for school.”

Cadet Anthony Casello said reducing financial pressure will bolster the AFROTC community at universities. “Half our Cadets weren’t able to come [to this ceremony], because of classwork, because of work,” Casello said. “So lifting the burden, to not lose those opportunities, especially in the Cadet community and in AFROTC life—just committing yourself more to the programs and volunteering more and standing out and really enveloping yourself in this huge community.”

And as the Air Force, along with the other military services, continues to battle through a historically tough recruiting environment and dipping retention rates, the expansion of scholarships available to ROTC students builds a foundation for potentially more satisfied officers staying in the service down the road.

“You start that process early and you start saying things like, ‘Hey, we’re going to help you pay for housing or we’re going help cover tuition,’ all of a sudden, there’s just so much more of an incentive,” Fraher said. “[People say] ‘I want to get back to this organization, I want to serve more. Because this organization has taken care of me, I want to take care of it.’”

Such efforts are among the many “small things” the Air Force is pursuing to address longstanding problems like its pilot shortage, Brown said.

“There’s a number of things we’ve got to be able to do. Each one of these … is an opportunity, because you might have someone who wanted to become a pilot but didn’t have the means to finish school, now we keep them in the program so they can get commissioned and have that opportunity,” Brown said.

Cadet Cayla Williams, a junior at George Mason University who was recognized during the ceremony as one of the first recipients of the award, called in a commitment by the Air Force to “current students who’ve proven that they are committed to making this a career, not just a dream.”

The broader reorganization of ROTC scholarships started last spring, officials said, shortly after the death of McGee, one of the last living Tuskegee Airmen and a veteran of 409 combat missions. The decision to name the award in his honor was in keeping with his passion for helping young Airmen, said McGee’s daughters, Charlene and Yvonne.

“He would tell you, ‘I’ve had my final flight. I passed the torch. You are our future,’” Charlene McGee told the assembled Cadets. “He would go on to say that although it seems like it could be a daunting job to follow in his footsteps, you have what it takes to do it. And he would say, first of all, dream big. And then he would say, work hard because you have to be ready to work. And you’re putting in that work now. And he would say, never give up. … And finally he would tell you, help others along the way.”