More Pay, More Flexible BAH Lay Ahead in 2023 NDAA

Dec. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The 2023 National Defense Authorization bill passed the House Dec. 8 and the Senate is poised to pass it in the next few weeks, paving the way for a 4.6 percent pay raise, a housing allowance increase, the elimination of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and more.

But the authorization bill only directs policy; it takes a Defense Appropriations Act to fund those programs. Lawmakers are still negotiating an omnibus spending bill that would give the federal government a budget. As long as the government continues to operate under a continuing resolution, funding levels are frozen at the previous year’s level and raises to basic pay, BAH, and other accounts are impacted, as Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall outlined in a recent letter to Congress.

What is clear from the 2023 NDAA is that lawmakers want to put more money in troops’ pockets to combat soaring inflation.

Pay and Allowances

At 4.6 percent, the 2023 pay raise is the largest in 20 years and in line with the President’s budget request. On top of that, the NDAA authorizes the Defense Department to increase Basic Allowance for Housing payments by an extra 2 percent. The 2023 rates for BAH have yet to be released.

The bill also would expand eligibility for the new Basic Needs Allowance, which will supplement the pay of junior service members with large families. The initial BNA legislation authorized the payment to service members whose gross family income was up to 130 percent of the federal poverty rate based on the family’s size; under the 2023 NDAA, eligibility would expand to those whose gross family income is up to 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. To receive the supplement, members must apply.

The NDAA also renews the Pentagon’s authority to temporarily adjust BAH rates in response to soaring prices. DOD used this authority in both 2021 and 2022 to adjust rates in places where housing costs exceeded established BAH rates by 20 percent or more, but that authority expired Sept. 30, 2022; under the 2023 NDAA, it is extended through fiscal 2024.

The NDAA also includes a proviso that would require the Pentagon to produce a report on the “efficiency and accuracy of the current system used to calculate BAH.” That system entails surveying roughly 400 rental markets across the country, determining the median price of rent and utilities for six different housing options.

Lawmakers also directed the Pentagon to consider alternatives to the way BAH is now calculated, perhaps including data from local school districts or recalculating BAH more frequently than once a year, and potentially being more transparent in how the BAH formulas are calculated or contracting those calculations out to a civilian vendor.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass has pushed for similar ideas as part of her call for a “holistic” review of military compensation.

In addition to BAH, the NDAA also calls for Pentagon leaders to conduct a review of the allowances given to troops for dislocation and relocation when they temporarily or permanently change assignments.

The bill also would require an external study on “the value of basic pay for members of the Armed Forces,” including an assessment of the underlying model used to determine basic pay and whether it needs to be changed. The provision calls for Pentagon officials to provide three briefings to Congressional committees, first in April 2023, then one year after the NDAA is passed, and again a year later.

COVID-19 Vaccine

The NDAA, if passed, will direct the Pentagon to rollback its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, which has been in place since Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered the measure in August 2021. Thousands of service members were discharged or retired because they declined to be vaccinated.

While President Joe Biden and Austin have argued in favor of the vaccine mandate, Congressional Republicans had pressed the issue and Democrats in Congress bowed to the pressure. HASC Chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said the situation had changed with the general easing of COVID-19 protocols across the country.

The NDAA also extends a requirement that any service member kicked out for refusing the vaccine receive no less than a general discharge, and requires the Secretary of Defense to submit data quarterly to Congress on religious and medical exemptions to its vaccine requirement until the requirement is dropped.

Recruiting and Retention

The NDAA responds to military recruiting woes with several directives. Lawmakers want a broad review of recruiting data from the services, an evaluation by the Comptroller General on each service’s marketing and recruiting practices, and a report on how DOD advertises itself to racial and ethnic minorities. It also re-authorizes the service secretaries to develop up to three new incentives for new recruits.

In addition to attracting new service members, the NDAA contains sections aimed at improving retention. Specifically, it calls for each department to conduct reviews and share best practices for improving retention for female service members and for special operations forces, a career field that is in constant need of more recruits and can ill afford to lose too many people.

The Air Force in particular could be affected by another provision included in the bill that would require a “study to identify opportunities to provide more support services to, and greater recognition of combat accomplishments” of drone pilots and crew members.

That review would cover everything from the special duty and combat pay available to UAV crew members, to mental health support, safety policies, and career advancement opportunities.

Kendall Warns Congress: Continuing Resolution Stopping 61 New Programs

Dec. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

With a little more than a week to go before the continuing resolution funding the federal government expires, lawmakers in Congress still have yet to reach an agreement on spending—and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall is warning that dozens of programs and projects could be affected if no long-term agreement is reached, according to a letter obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine.

While lawmakers continue to negotiate a spending bill, they have made progress on the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense policy bill—the House passed a compromise version of the NDAA on Dec. 8, setting it up for passage in the Senate. The NDAA can authorize maximum spending limits, but it cannot appropriate funds.

All told, a yearlong CR could cost the Department of the Air Force up to $12 billion in buying power, Kendall wrote in the letter to members of Congress.

Even a short-term continuing resolution “threatens DAF readiness, delays military construction projects, reduces aircraft availability and maintenance, hinders the Space Force, and curbs modernization efforts,” Kendall added.

Specifically, Kendall wrote that as long as the government continues to operate under a CR, 61 new programs and 28 military construction projects are unable to start, impacting more than $6 billion worth of efforts.

Those military construction projects include facilities for some of the Air Force’s most important modernization efforts, including the KC-46 tanker, the new B-21 bomber, and the LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

Facilities for the European Deterrence Initiative, aimed at combatting Russian aggression, are also affected, as are funds for “Indo-Pacific presence activities,” Kendall wrote. Flight hours and weapons system sustainment are cut, decreasing aircraft fleets’ mission capable rates.

Transfers into the Space Force are delayed, and eight new Space Deltas cannot be activated. Pay raises and increases to allowances cannot go into effect. And production of the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared satellite is delayed.

The number of new starts and military construction projects affected by the CR exceed what the department faced last year, when 16 new programs and seven construction projects were affected.

Congress didn’t pass a full budget for 2022 until mid-March, nearly six months into the fiscal year. For fiscal 2023, the legislature passed a CR just before the Sept. 30 deadline, funding the government until Dec. 16. Now, with just a few days to go until that expires, Pentagon officials are ramping up pressure on lawmakers to act—Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III sent a letter similar to Kendall’s last week, saying a CR costs the DOD at least $3 billion every month.

Yet Republicans and Democrats remain at odds and seemingly unable to reach an agreement on a so-called “omnibus” spending bill. Indeed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders threatened Dec. 8 to put forward a yearlong CR—exactly the kind of scenario Austin, Kendall, and other officials have warned would deeply damage the military.

“We may just have to go to a CR, which would be most unfortunate, but we have to weigh it against how unfortunate it would be if they cannibalized the domestic budget at the expense of the defense budget,” Pelosi reportedly said. “We need them both.”

CRs have become standard for Congress over the past quarter of a century, with one getting passed every year since 1997. Yearlong CRs, on the other hand, are rare but have occurred before—2007, 2011, and 2013 all saw yearlong CRs for at least part of the federal government.

DOD’s New Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability Will Underpin JADC2 But Require Cultural Shift, Officials Say

Dec. 8, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The Department of Defense announced a contract for future cloud services Dec. 7. The effort, Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC), will serve as a pillar of the U.S. military’s future operations, with a top line of $9 billion. It will provide the DOD with enterprise, global cloud services across all security and classification levels.

“This is a huge day for the department and what we can bring to our warfighters, particularly for areas like joint all-domain command and control, JADC2,” John Sherman, the DOD’s chief information officer, told reporters at the Pentagon on Dec. 8, referring to the U.S. military’s concept of more connected sensors and shooters. “We’ve talked about being able to provide that undergirding of the cloud computing that’s going to be there for the combatant commands and many others.”

The contracts for JWCC were awarded to Google, Oracle, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft. The Pentagon originally had a vision for a single cloud-service provider under the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program, which faced legal challenges over the contract and was ultimately canceled.

The JWCC contract awards run through 2028 and are worth up to $9 billion altogether. However, each vendor is only guaranteed $100,000 and will have to compete for task orders, the DOD’s cyber leaders said.

The DOD’s top cyber officials said having cloud services for many of its capabilities will enable coordination and data sharing on a level that is currently impossible. But they acknowledged that individual services can be territorial and the DOD will need a broad cultural shift to move toward integrated operations and a shift to more shared technology.

“As we move towards an enterprise framework here, which is really what JADC2 is about, and why having JWCC now is so critical to be that binding element here, that compute capability that really spans the entire enterprise, which we haven’t had before—that is a bit of a cultural shift,” Sherman said. “This is a journey to get there to work with our military department colleagues, the combatant commands, the defense agencies, and field activities to lead the cultural piece of this.”

Services are also not used to being forced to share one platform. For example, during recent exercises at Project Convergence, an Army-led exercise to experiment with elements of JADC2, the Army and the Air Force learned that their assets had trouble communicating in an automated way. They thought that might happen because the Army and Air Force did not originally design their assets to talk to each other.

“We’re going to have to be joint, integrated, and we can’t miss a step or time,” said Lily Zeleke, the acting deputy chief information officer for the information enterprise. “What JWCC buys us is speed, scale, security.”

From Zeleke’s point of view, the DOD needs to field the cloud capabilities and then improve its systems.

“This is it,” Zeleke said. “We’re going to have to have the diversity of cloud capabilities and the providers and the technology. As it evolves, it’s going to have to give us—[and] we’re going to have to be able to do—monitoring of the whole environment. We’re going to have to be able to do automation.”

The U.S.’s “pacing” challenge of China, and what the DOD sees as the Chinese military’s desire to disrupt America’s capabilities in a conflict, drives the need to move toward a more modern system for DOD-wide communications, the department’s cyber leaders reiterated during the news conference.

“Where we’re heading, in the environment we’re in, is going to drive us to using JWCC,” Zeleke said.

What Could Be Part of the B-21 ‘Family of Systems’? New Report Offers Some Insight

Dec. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

With the unveiling of the B-21 Raider, speculation and interest in the new bomber have reached a fever pitch, with a first flight still to come in mid-2023.

But the B-21 won’t just be about the large, flying wing aircraft that rolled out in Palmdale, Calif., on Dec. 2. Air Force officials have frequently spoken about the Raider becoming the lead element of a so-called “family of systems,” and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has made defining that family of systems one of his seven “operational imperatives” for the department.

What exactly will be included in that family remains unknown, but a new research paper from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, informed by an unclassified workshop that gathered Air Force leaders, planners, and operators along with industry partners, offers some insight into what might be considered.

“What we haven’t heard much about is the family of systems that is going to accompany [the B-21]. Just dribs and drabs of information. So this report might actually help … get a handle on some of the capabilities that might be in that family of systems, including weapons, that could help reduce risk and increase the effectiveness of our combat forces,” said retired Col. Mark Gunzinger, the Mitchell Institute’s director of future concepts and capability assessments and a co-author of the paper.

The three-day workshop, held this summer, was meant in part to develop concepts for what the Air Force calls “autonomous collaborative platforms”—relatively cheap drones that can fly alongside manned aircraft, operating with some level of independence.

The most high-profile example of these ACPs has been the Air Force’s planned collaborative combat aircraft, intended mainly for fighters. But Caitlin Lee, one of the workshop’s leads and co-author of the paper, noted that in discussions with the Air Force Research Laboratory, officials have said they envision “a whole family of potential capabilities and a range of different mission sets that this could actually involve.”

The workshop was aimed at exploring one of those mission sets—the long-range penetrating strike mission that the B-21 will take on. Three teams of experts were tasked with designing up to three kinds of unmanned aircraft to aid the bomber in strikes against an air base, a maritime threat, and a transporter erector launcher in a hypothetical conflict with China in 2030.

In all three cases, no constraints were put on what kind of aircraft the teams could create, but none of them opted for an “exquisite unmanned fighter” or “exquisite unmanned bomber” that could match the B-21’s range, Lee noted. That’s in line with Kendall’s own comments this past July that the department had determined that a long-range uncrewed escort for the B-21 was cost-prohibitive.

Instead, the three teams created a mix of UAVs, most with a range of a few thousand miles, a few launched from other bombers. And the capabilities given to each varied as well—some designed to provide defensive counterair; others as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms gathering data; others for suppression of enemy air defenses; and still others as escorts.

“Two-thirds of the teams design ACPs for counterair, which really speaks to the need for survivability for these penetrating strike packages, where they’re operating in this highly contested air environment,” Lee said. “ … And then ISR was another really important mission. Three of the ACPs had a primary role for that, but I think all ACPs had sensors of some kind or another, because that tracking, especially mobile targets, in contested airspace is a real challenge.”

Just as notably, the teams sought large quantities of ACPs and were willing to trade off some capability for quantity, Lee noted.

“If the Air Force is able to buy larger numbers of lower-cost ACPs, that could really drive down risk,” Lee said. “And it’s all about the modest platforms in large numbers versus trying to put more sophisticated capabilities to get that operational advantage.”

The exact rundown of the intended missions and numbers of drones the teams in the workshop decided on are as follows:

Maritime threat

ACP 1: Defensive counterair, 40
ACP 2: ISR, communications relay, 10
ACP 3: Strike, 20

Transporter erector launcher

ACP 1: Escort, suppression of enemy air defenses, 10
ACP 2: ISR, Suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), offensive counterair, 144 (24 per bomber)
ACP 3: ISR, SEAD, offensive counterair, 120 (20 per bomber)

Air base attack

ACP 1: Escort, 8
ACP 2: SEAD, 16 initially, increased to 32
ACP 3: Jamming, 8

In all three cases, the workshop experts determined that the addition of these uncrewed teammates reduced risk for the missions. But the authors did note that for the air base attack, in particular, the risk wasn’t driven down as much because the current class of precision-guided munitions require bombers to fly extremely close to targets, assuming a permissive environment.

“So that is a collateral finding and recommendation from this effort—that the Air Force needs to develop those mid-range weapons that will optimize the strike power and lethality of our penetrating assets,” Gunzinger said.

Indeed, some of the ACPs designed by the teams in the workshops were essentially loitering munitions—designed to fly above targets and then attack, only to be used once. And as the B-21 continues to develop, new kinds of munitions could very well join that family of systems, too, Lee noted.

“This family could have all kinds of different capabilities in it, whether it’s space assets, munitions, and potentially ACPs,” Lee said.

Stephen Colbert Visits Space Force in Greenland and Learns the Mission is No Laughing Matter

Dec. 8, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The Space Force has served as fodder for many comedians who have questioned what it does since it stood up in 2019. Now in its third year, the service continues to tell its story and to explain its importance to the American public. On Dec. 6, they got a boost from CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The popular comedian engaged in irreverent humor on a visit to Thule Air Base in Greenland but also showcased some of the Space Force’s most important roles there and visited service members as part of a USO trip.

“I wanted to learn about their mission,” Colbert said while introducing his special titled “Red, White, and Greenland: Stephen Cold-Bear is Lost in Space Force.”

What the Space Force enables America’s military and the general public to do is critical, the service says. People around the globe would struggle to navigate a few blocks without the Global Positioning System. America’s defense relies on its satellites and tracking capabilities. But space is increasingly congested and contested, the Space Force says, and it has to address that challenge. On The Late Show, the service got to show why its mission matters on a popular television show.

“It was really important to go and do the engagement because the American public is still learning what the Space Force is and why we stood up, and we know that space is a war-fighting domain,” a Space Force spokesperson who was on the trip told Air & Space Forces Magazine on Dec. 8.

Colbert interviewed Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman. While the affable Towberman played along with Colbert’s intentionally ignorant interviewing style, he was able to explain the importance of the Space Force. Towberman’s interview with Colbert was part of a longer visit by the Space Force’s top enlisted member to visit with service members at Thule, the Space Force said.

“We ensure unfettered access and freedom to maneuver in space,” Towberman told Colbert. “There’s an increasing amount of activity. There’s more stuff up there. … It’s becoming very, very busy.”

At Thule, Colbert visited the 12th Space Warning Squadron, which operates a missile early warning system as part of Space Delta 4, and the 23rd Space Operations Squadron, part of Space Delta 6’s global satellite control network. Thule is part of U.S. Space Command’s Missile Warning Center. Colbert experienced a simulated ballistic missile launch.

Colbert’s trip was not just public relations for the service and television fodder for one of CBS’s flagship programs. Colbert has a long-standing relationship with the USO. In 2009, Colbert went to Iraq to film multiple episodes of his old Comedy Central program, The Colbert Report, in front of a live audience at Camp Victory in Baghdad. Colbert had his head shaved by the late Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the bald commander of American troops in the country, in solidarity with U.S. service members. At Thule, Colbert was also appreciative of American troops stationed there.

“He was so friendly,” the spokesperson said of Colbert’s visit to Thule. “Every single person felt like they mattered and was valued when he said hi.”

Thule is a harsh place to be deployed. It is the northernmost U.S. base in the world. The landscape is barren, and Guardians often joke it is similar to being deployed to the surface of Mars, according to the spokesperson.

Service members at Thule have limited connection to the outside world, despite the service’s role in communications across the joint force.

“Anything like this, it’s just really important for the morale,” the spokesperson said.

Colbert visited Aug. 4-5 and taped segments for the show. Towberman’s visit lasted several days.

Colbert also did a stand-up comedy routine and sang karaoke with country music singer Sturgill Simpson and Towberman for the assembled service members.

“Their visit was a really good opportunity to affect the morale and welfare of the Guardians and the Airmen who served there,” the spokesperson said. “But also [to] talk about that mission and being able to show what’s so special and unique.”

House Passes Compromise NDAA; Here’s What’s in It for the Space Force

Dec. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The House of Representatives voted to pass a new, compromise version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act on Dec. 8, sending the annual defense policy bill to the Senate and setting up its passage before the end of the year.

Congressional leaders unveiled the mammoth 4,408-page piece of legislation late Dec. 6, with provisions covering everything from the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate to multiyear munition buys to the development of hypersonic weapons.

But for the Defense Department’s youngest service, the Space Force, the bill included dozens of sections covering strategy, structure, and more, as legislators continue to define and shape the service.

More Money Coming?

While the NDAA does not appropriate funds for the Defense Department or any of the services to spend, it does authorize funding for different accounts and generally offers an indication of what lawmakers want to spend on.

And for the Space Force, in particular, the compromise NDAA offers sizable increases on top of the 2023 budget request that was already set to grow by 36 percent.

The biggest jump came in research, development, testing, and evaluation, where authorizers tacked on nearly $770 million to the service’s request of $15.8 billion.

Procurement saw a sizable increase as well, more than $447 million, on top of the $4.08 billion originally requested. Even the operations and maintenance account got a plus-up of $150 million.

Strategy and Policy

While those funding increases still have to be finalized by an appropriations bill—still being negotiated in Congress—the NDAA mostly affects the Pentagon through policy changes. And perhaps the most direct move the NDAA makes on how the Space Force operates is its requirement that before any major satellite acquisition program achieves Milestone A approval—the earliest milestone point and before acquisitions begin—the Space Force must develop “requirements for the defense and resilience of the satellites.”

Another similar provision requires the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, to make publicly available the department’s strategy for protecting and defending satellites in orbit.

Such requirements and a strategy could lead to new levels of transparency within the Space Force, which has struggled with issues of over-classification that even its own leaders have bemoaned. The service’s defensive and offensive space weapons remain shrouded in mystery, which some say has harmed deterrence by not allowing the service to clearly convey its capabilities to adversaries.

Another section included in the bill would expand plans for the Space Force’s “tactically responsive space capability”—the ability to quickly launch new satellites as needed. For several years now, congressional leaders have pushed the service to establish such a program, and this latest NDAA goes further in emphasizing the need for the Space Force to not only be able to launch satellites quickly, but also to be able to sustain and control those satellites.

Among the requirements included, Congress wants the Secretary of the Air Force to provide long-term continuity for such tactically responsive capabilities through the Future Years Defense Program, which stretches five years into the future, and to oversee the development of “tactics, training, and procedures” for such operations. The bill also would require the Secretary of Defense to submit a plan for the tactically responsive space program every year through 2026.

Finally, the NDAA also includes a section that would impact one of the Space Force’s newest additions—the Space Development Agency. Specifically, the bill calls for a review by the Office of the Secretary of Defense as to “whether the Space Development Agency should be exempt from the Joint Integration and Development System in order to speed overall fielding of proliferated space systems.”

The SDA has been lauded by many within the Pentagon for its aggressive efforts to launch a proliferated constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, dubbed the National Defense Space Architecture. However, the agency has never had to follow the JCIDS process that governs almost all Defense Department acquisition programs.

Structure

As in years past, the NDAA includes several provisions giving the Chief of Space Operations the latitude to vary end strength, both for the entire service and for specific ranks, as needed. With the Space Force still accepting interservice transfers and recruiting highly trained personnel from industry, the exact numbers and ratios of Guardians are still stabilizing.

Beyond end strength, though, the NDAA also touches on several basic organizational questions facing the Space Force.

Most prominently, the bill discards a provision that was included in a previous version passed by the House that would have established a Space National Guard. While several National Guard leaders have pushed for the creation of a Space National Guard, saying it is needed to properly align Guard units with space missions to the Space Force, President Joe Biden’s administration has opposed such a move, instead endorsing the idea of a hybrid “Space Component” that folds the traditional Active-duty and Reserve/Guard components into one, with full-time and part-time Guardians.

The NDAA doesn’t go so far as to openly endorse the Space Component concept. But it does ask the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress on how the Space Component would work, getting into specific details on how rules, regulations, and policies would be formed to allow Guardians to move between duty statuses, retire, and face promotion boards.

The report would have to have an analysis of how other government agencies would deal with the Space Component, such as determining the proper pay and benefits for current and former Guardians. It would also include a study on what laws might need to be changed to make the Space Component work, and an analysis of other potential issues such as budgetary impacts, the effect on diversity and inclusion, and possible conflicts of interest if a Guardian moves to part-time status while working a private industry job connected to space.

Such a study would follow one required by the 2022 NDAA that tasked the Pentagon with conducting a broader analysis of how the Space Force should organize its reserve component and issuing a recommendation on the formation of a Space National Guard. This latest provision is far more detailed in the questions that Congress wants answers to and suggests lawmakers are looking to proceed with figuring out the logistics of the Space Component before its implementation.

The Space Component isn’t the only Space Force structure that is poised to get a closer look as part of the NDAA. Another section would require the Director of National Intelligence and the Chief of Space Operations to submit a report by March 1, 2023, reviewing the status of the new National Space Intelligence Center.

Through the language in the bill, lawmakers seem to express skepticism about the fact that the NSIC, currently run by Space Delta 18, is subordinate to Space Operations Command, “rather than a field operating agency aligned to the Director of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance of the Space Force.”

The report would have to address any “perceived mission misalignment, potential mitigating measures, or other structural organization concerns” related to the current structure.

Another report required under the NDAA would be one addressing “the manning required to fully staff the current and planned cyber squadrons of the Space Force.” Specifically, lawmakers want to know:

The specific sourcing of existing billets of the Space Force optimally postured for transfer to cyber squadrons;
The administrative processes required to shift billets and existing funding to cyber squadrons;
The responsibilities and functions performed by military personnel and civilian personnel;
The benefits and risks to the Space Force’s approach of transferring billets to cyber squadrons.

The Space Force currently has a number of cyber-focused squadrons, some within Space Delta 6 focused on defensive cyber operations for space systems and others nested within the Space Force element in the National Reconnaissance Office.

Air Force ‘Building the Airplane as We Fly It’ on New Operational Concepts, Wing Commander Says

Dec. 7, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force is still working out the kinks of its new operational concepts, Col. Ernesto M. DiVittorio, commander of the 366th Fighter Wing at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, said during an AFA Warfighters in Action event Dec. 7. The virtual discussion focused on two of the Air Force’s main ideas for future warfare: agile combat employment (ACE), which is the ability to operate from distributed and sometimes austere airfields, and multi-capable Airmen (MCA), the notion that service members will have additional skills to support more dispersed operations.

“We are building the airplane as we fly it with respect to a lot of the concepts that are going to be required to operate as a lead wing,” DiVittorio said when asked how the Air Force envisions the role of multi-capable Airmen.

Overall, the aim is to allow the service to operate with a smaller footprint by ensuring that Airmen have a broader skill set. Multi-capable Airmen are to key ACE doctrine since the Air Force will operate farther from larger, fixed bases with myriad support personnel.

ACE is one of the service’s top priorities. The Air Force and Department of Defense see China as the U.S.’s primary military challenge. According to the latest DOD China Military Power Report, China has increasingly capable ballistic missiles, rockets, and aircraft.

In many ways, ACE is not a new concept. The Air Force’s predecessor, the Army Air Forces, used a similar model in the Pacific campaign in World War II. The U.S. conducted brutal land, sea, and air fights in the Pacific over islands such as Tarawa and Guadalcanal in part to ensure allied control over the airfields there. Ultimately, U.S. air power prevented the American troops from ever having to invade the Japanese mainland.

“After a foothold had been gained on an island, we had Airmen that were landing aircraft, turning them and launching them, and lily padding their way across the Pacific,” DiVittorio said. “We’re taking the next step.”

During World War II, the U.S. had an army of service members adapting on the fly. The tempo of the great war demanded it. Exactly what the 21st century definition of multi-capable Airmen will be is still up in the air. The Air Force knows Airmen need additional skills and more flexibility, but the service has not come up with a firm definition of the concept or explained whether it would mean some jobs require Airmen to know less about more things.

“What we have not codified yet in Department of the Air Force instructions is if we’re going to be giving anything up or if this training will ultimately be additive,” DiVittorio said.

Right now, the service is training multi-capable Airmen to do their own jobs with the same skill level but teaching new skills that align with their current jobs, he said.

“We are training, for instance, our maintenance Airmen to do skills that are tangential to what they currently specialize in,” DiVittorio said. Civilian aircraft maintenance technicians are empowered to do more diverse tasks than Air Force crews, and it’s natural, he said, for the Air Force to try to expand what its current Airmen do.

“They learn sheet metal work. They learn other skills. They don’t just do flight line maintenance,” DiVittorio said. “We’re starting to work on getting people familiar with those skills so that in a highly contested environment where we are under threat, and we do not have a large footprint, we are still able to turn aircraft.”

DiVittorio acknowledged that ACE and multi-capable Airmen won’t replace well-staffed, highly-outfitted garrisons. But he said they are concepts the Air Force sees as necessary for the service to be prepared to go to war.

“We’re raising a new generation of commanders that are more comfortable accepting risk and making decisions to get after the mission and still take care of the Airmen,” DiVittorio said.

AFMC Boss Tells Supervisors to ‘Revisit’ Telework Posture

Dec. 7, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The head of Air Force Materiel Command is telling supervisors and commanders to “revisit” the current use of telework on their teams, emphasizing the importance of “face-to-face team interaction.”

Gen. Duke Z. Richardson sent the update to AFMC personnel Nov. 30 to explain his “commander’s intent” for telework within the major command, an AFMC spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The update didn’t change any policy regarding telework. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2021, the Air Force released updated guidance on its policies and expanded opportunities, allowing squadron commanders or their equivalents to determine whether positions were eligible for telework, with input from supervisors.

But while the pandemic led the Air Force to dramatically expand its use of telework arrangements, Richardson said in his update that the “timing is right for supervisors to revisit the telework posture and determine the optimal blend for individuals, teams, centers, and the headquarters,” according to AFMC spokesperson Derek Kaufman.

“While maximizing telework at the height of pandemic infections absolutely made sense, the current situation is different,” Kaufman added, summarizing Richardson’s update. “Supporting our joint warfighters, accelerating change and delivering integrated capabilities faster than China, demands long-term and focused effort. [Richardson] articulated a belief face-to-face team interaction yields faster and better solutions.”

Going along with that belief, Richardson identified what Kaufman called “guiding principles” for supervisors at AFMC—that in general, staff should spend a “preponderance” of duty hours at the office, and that teleworking levels will be “higher than before the pandemic, but less than the height of the pandemic.”

Tammy Lyons, acting director of AFMC manpower, personnel, and services, clarified to Air & Space Forces Magazine that “in most cases, the AFMC commander expects personnel assigned to HQ AFMC staff positions to work more time in the office than by telework,” while specific schedules are determined by supervisors based on requirements, eligibility, and mission needs.

“In evaluating telework, compressed work schedules, and similar flexibilities, supervisors are responsible for achieving the mission, while being responsive to unique individual and team circumstances,” Kaufman added.

While the general expectation is for service members and civilians to spend the majority of their time in the office, there isn’t an exact ratio for the entire MAJCOM to pursue—Richardson is not “mandating percentage goals for telework,” Lyons said.

Still, Richardson’s approach does seem to represent a shift from previous views voiced by Air Force leaders who suggested the service would embrace telework writ large even after the pandemic.

In September 2020, then-Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen W. “Seve” Wilson suggested that as many as 30 percent of Air Force employees would permanently telework.

In the same timeframe, then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly said telework could allow the Air Force to change its approach to temporary duty travel and permanent changes of station, letting service members have more stability by living in one location while teleworking to new assignments.

Around the same time, the Defense Innovation Board, responsible for advising the Pentagon on how it can become more innovative and technology-friendly, released a report urging the DOD to embrace remote work and telework by expanding and upgrading its IT networks, offering more opportunities for secure classified work, starting remote work pilot programs, and more.

A year later, in September 2021, then-commander of AFMC Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. told Airmen that “we will not go back to what we were doing before” the pandemic with regard to telework. Specifically, Bunch set a goal of 50 percent of AFMC headquarters staff teleworking either permanently or partially.

By embracing telework during the pandemic, Bunch said at the time, “we have demonstrated that we can execute the mission.”

The balance of in-office work and telework has been a delicate one for employers and employees not just in the military but across the workforce.

Some jobs, particularly in the military, simply cannot be done virtually—for the Air Force, flight line operations, classified programs, and more require in-person work.

But among those who can do their work remotely, a July survey from Gallup of the general public found that 34 percent preferred to telework exclusively, while 60 percent preferred a hybrid of remote and in-office. The survey also found that “the demand for long-term remote flexibility has substantially increased,” with roughly 60 percent of permanent teleworkers saying they would switch jobs if not offered flexibility, and 30 percent of hybrid workers saying the same.

Increasingly, more and more employees are headed back to the office in some form or fashion, though not at the levels seen before the pandemic.

Congress Unveils Compromise NDAA; Here’s How It Would Affect the Air Force Fleet

Dec. 7, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

After weeks of negotiations, top lawmakers unveiled a compromise version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act late Dec. 6, priming Congress to pass the annual policy bill before the end of the year.

The top Republicans and Democrats from the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee crafted the new legislation, bypassing the usual conference process of resolving differences between the versions passed by each chamber, then sending the bill back for another round of voting.

The House passed its version of the NDAA in July, but the Senate had yet to vote on its own—not to mention hundreds of amendments that had been filed—leaving precious little time for the usual legislative process before this session of Congress ends Jan. 3.

The compromise bill is intended to speed up the process, incorporating elements of the House-passed version, the SASC markup, and other proposals from Representatives and Senators. The House is scheduled to vote on the bill Dec. 7, and the Senate is expected to follow in the next week or so.

The largest change in policy included in the compromise NDAA is undoubtedly the rollback of the Pentagon’s mandate that service members be vaccinated against COVID-19. That policy, first announced by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in August 2021—has led to nearly 2 million troops getting the vaccine but also sparked legal battles and resulted in thousands of service members getting booted from service for refusing to get the shot.

Prior to the new NDAA being released, President Joe Biden and Austin had voiced support for keeping the vaccine mandate in place, arguing that it was necessary to ensure readiness. But rolling it back was a key policy goal for Republicans, and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the HASC, indicated he was open to it, pointing to the general easing of COVID-19 protocols across the country.

It remains to be seen, however, how other Democrats in Congress will react to the mandate’s removal in the NDAA, or if Biden will consider a veto of the bill over the issue. Such a move could spark a Congressional override, something lawmakers last did for the 2021 bill after President Donald Trump blocked it.

While the vaccine policy change is likely to generate the most headlines and debate as the NDAA moves forward, pieces of the 4,408-page bill touch on every aspect of the Pentagon. For the Air Force, the bill would carry major implications for the future of the service’s fleet of aircraft.

Some Divestments Allowed

For years, the Air Force and Congress have clashed over the service’s attempts to retire older aircraft in its fleet, a move intended to free up money for modernization—a strategy dubbed “divest to invest.”

In the 2023 NDAA, lawmakers are prepared to let some retirements go through. After the Air Force asked to retire 21 A-10s, one provision in the bill would allow that process to go through by reducing the congressionally mandated size of the fleet from 171 to 153.

Additionally, the NDAA would amend a previous congressional requirement that the Air Force maintain a fleet of 479 aerial tanker aircraft. The new minimum would be set at 466 planes, allowing for the proposed divestment of 13 KC-135 tankers.

Finally, the bill would eliminate a provision in the 2019 NDAA that required the Air Force to keep at least six E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft. That would let the service proceed with its plan to retire eight of 16 remaining E-8s in 2023, followed by four more in 2024.

Some Blocked

But while Congress is ready to let go of some A-10s, KC-135s, and E-8s, it doesn’t want to get rid of other aircraft just yet.

Most prominently, the NDAA includes a section that would block the Air Force from retiring any F-22 fighters until 2027 while maintaining a fleet size of at least 184 Raptors.

That stands in contrast to the Air Force’s stated desire to retire 33 of 36 Block 20 F-22s, reducing the fleet size to 153 aircraft. Service leaders have argued that the Block 20 airplanes are currently rated for training use only because they are expensive to maintain and are increasingly mismatched to the combat-coded versions, reducing their value as training platforms.

A previous version of the NDAA passed by the House Armed Services Committee rejected that plan and went further in requiring the Air Force to instead upgrade those F-22s, a move Air Force officials say would be too expensive.

The new compromise NDAA doesn’t go that far, but it does require a report from the Air Force that includes a “strategy and execution plan … for conducting formal training for F–22 aircrews,” including the reestablishment of one or more F-22 Formal Training Units, where the Block 20 F-22s currently reside. The bill also requires an audit by the comptroller general to determine the costs and timeline for upgrading the aircraft.

In addition to the F-22, the NDAA would fully block any divestment of the C-40 Clipper, used to transport senior military commanders, Cabinet officials, and members of Congress.

Other provisions in the NDAA would prevent aircraft divestments, but with caveats.

No F-15 fighters could be retired until the Secretary of the Air Force submits a report to Congress detailing how, when, and from where the service plans to retire F-15s, any effects from such divestments, an explanation of how to mitigate those effects, and procurement plans for the F-15, especially the F-15EX. The Air Force has said it wants to buy fewer F-15EXs in the long term, a move that some members of Congress have opposed.

The NDAA would also block any retirement of E-3 AWACS aircraft, contrary to the Air Force’s wish to retire 15 of the 31 airplanes in the fleet. However, the bill includes exceptions that would let the service retire some, depending on its progress in acquiring the E-7 Wedgetail, the planned replacement for AWACS.

If the Air Force submits an acquisition strategy for the Wedgetail approved by its acquisition czar, it can cut its number of E-3s down to 21. If the service awards a contract for the procurement of E-7s, it can cut the AWACS fleet down to 18.

Another section in the NDAA would prohibit the retirement of any C-130 transport aircraft currently assigned to the Air National Guard. That would mostly affect the aging C-130Hs—the Air Force has said it wants to cut 12 in 2023. The NDAA would also require the Air Force to maintain a C-130 fleet size of at least 271 aircraft.

Aircraft Added

While much in the Air Force-related sections in the NDAA deal with the proposed retirements of aircraft, the bill also would authorize increases in procurement for some types of aircraft.

Funding for those extra purchases still needs to be appropriated—the NDAA doesn’t provide that, and Congress is still negotiating an omnibus spending bill that would provide such funds.

Still, the NDAA offers an indication of what lawmakers want the Air Force to spend more on, namely F-35 fighters, HH-60W helicopters, and EC-37B Compass Calls.

The Air Force’s request for F-35As in 2023 fell to 33 aircraft, well short of previous years’ requests for 48. The NDAA would approve funding for five extra fighters, just shy of the seven included in the Air Force’s unfunded priorities list.

Also included in that unfunded priorities list was four extra EC-37Bs, which are used to disrupt an enemy’s command, control, communications, radar, and navigation. The NDAA would authorize funding for those aircraft.

One kind of aircraft that was not included in the unfunded priorities list was the HH-60W Jolly Green II, designed to replace the HH-60G Pave Hawk for combat search and rescue missions. Indeed, the Air Force has indicated it plans to cut its total buy at 75 helicopters, instead of the originally planned 113.

That’s led to pushback in Congress, and lawmakers included an extra 10 HH-60Ws in the NDAA on top of the 10 requested that would have completed the 75-aircraft fleet the Air Force wanted. On top of that, the NDAA requests a requirements study and strategy from the Air Force for its combat search and rescue mission.