Czech Republic Plans to Buy F-35 as New Fighter, Would Be 16th Customer

July 20, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Czech Republic plans to buy 24 F-35As, which would make it the 16th nation to either buy F-35s or announce the intent to do so and the 10th member or soon-to-be member of NATO to select the jet.

In a July 20 Prague press conference, Czech prime minister Petr Fiala said the nation has “decided to enter into negotiations with our U.S. partners for the acquisition of the fifth-generation, supersonic F-35 multirole aircraft.” He also announced that the country will seek to buy Swedish infantry fighting vehicles. These moves will strengthen the Czech Republic’s armed forces “for decades to come,” he said. The country is interested in the F-35A conventional takeoff version.

The aircraft will replace 14 leased Swedish JAS-39C/D Gripen fighters, which will serve until 2027. The Czech Republic was also considering the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Gripen JAS-39E, which has been upgraded with new capabilities. Notably, the Swedish offer would have allowed the Czech Republic to retain at no cost the Gripen C/Ds it has been using.

In addition to the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, the F-35 is flying for Australia, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Korea, and the U.K. It has been officially selected by Belgium, Finland, Germany, Poland, Singapore, and Switzerland. Canada has announced that the F-35 is its “preferred” choice for a new fighter, and negotiations are underway with Greece.

Turkey was a founding F-35 partner but was ejected from the program when that country purchased Russian S-400 air defense systems. Other users objected because the arrangement would have allowed Russian technicians the ability to observe F-35s at various ranges with their own equipment and potentially reveal vulnerabilities in the jet’s stealth properties.

Industry sources said the F-35 is under consideration by “several” other European nations and that some current users are exploring options to increase their inventory or planned buys.

Czech Defense minister Jana Cernochova said her government has authorized her to negotiate until October 2023 but that if an agreement isn’t reached on pricing by then, the F-35 isn’t necessarily off the table. She also said the Czech Republic is inclined to get a deal soon because the price of materials is increasing. The country wants F-35s to fill in closely behind the Gripens, indicating a desired delivery in 2027.

Gen. Karel Rehka, Czech Republic chief of staff, said the F-35 will remain “highly competitive” with other world fighters at least into the 2040s and perhaps into the 2060s.

“We’re really looking at the long term,” Rehka said in the Prague event. The F-35 is a multirole platform, but “it’s part of a … network on the battlefield; not just a fighter or bomber but … a platform that can serve as a command-and-control center and at the same time a very advanced sensor and spy aircraft.”

A Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the company is “honored the Czech Republic government is interested in the F-35” and will provide any support needed for “discussions about an acquisition.” Any further comments will have to come from the two governments, she said.

“We are confident the F-35 offers unmatched value as the most capable and lowest-life-cycle-cost aircraft, while delivering the strongest long-term industrial and economic opportunities compared to any fighter on the market,” the spokesperson said. The F-35’s selection by so many countries in the alliance makes it “the foundation of NATO and European alliance’s next generation air power.”

At Readiness Hearing, Air Force Calls to Retire Old Aircraft, Space Force Asks for Advanced Training

July 19, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness asked Air Force and Space Force leaders July 19 how the Ukraine conflict and competition with China have required increased readiness at a time when sustainment costs are constrained by investments in new technology.

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin focused on the need to retire legacy platforms to free up funds, while Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson said existing levels of training were “not sufficient” to teach Guardians how to counter adversaries’ threats in space.

HASC subcommittee on readiness ranking member Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said the challenge for the services and Congress is to strike a balance between readiness and modernization.

“As we’re seeing in Russia and Ukraine, it’s a reminder that we have to sustain high levels of readiness,” said Waltz, a colonel in the Army National Guard, in his opening statement of the July 19 hearing, referring to the logistics and sustainment challenges faced by Russian forces in Ukraine.

In the Pacific theater, Adm. John C. Aquilino had told Waltz that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command needed forward forces to counter China’s aggression. Meeting that request, said Waltz, a former Green Beret, requires sufficient operation and maintenance (O&M) funds.

“If we continue to tread water, within the next decade the [Chinese Communist Party] will modernize its military, bring it to parity, and in some areas overmatch with our own,” Waltz contended.

The Air Force’s fiscal 2023 O&M budget is $68.1 billion. In the Active-duty Air Force, “core readiness” programs, including weapon system sustainment and flying hours, received 23 percent and 10 percent of the proposed budget, respectively.

Allvin said readiness funding is constricted when the Air Force is required to maintain an aircraft beyond its planned lifespan.

“The age of our fleet, the programmed lifecycle maintenance projection, they sort of go out the window once the aircraft is sustained past its design life,” he said. “Every year, we try to be able to retire those legacy systems. And every year that we don’t, we just don’t park them, we try again to maintain them, and it costs more to maintain them.”

Allvin explained that once a platform is kept for up to 10 or 15 years past its anticipated life, anticipated maintenance issues no longer apply. Rather, the platform breaks in “new and different” ways, requiring longer time in depot maintenance.

Allvin identified three factors as part of the “continuous spiral” that ensues when a legacy platform is not retired:

The depot maintenance pipeline becomes clogged by the number of aircraft requiring maintenance; the overall budget increases because new systems require new logistics support dollars; and the maintenance workforce cannot transition to learn new platforms because they are still required on the older platforms.

“The high costs to sustain and operate these systems, along with their decreased relevance, is making your Air Force less effective,” Allvin said.

Alvin said that in other areas, the Air Force is making progress, such as a $27 million budgeted recruiting outreach effort in fiscal 2023, which is now being debated in Congress. The effort would improve Air Force outreach to underrepresented groups, geographic regions, and academic sources.

A pilot shortfall improved by 250 pilots in the past year, leaving some 1,600 vacancies, with monetary and non-monetary incentives helping to narrow the gap. An aircrew deficit, however, remains, something that could improve if legacy systems were phased out, Allvin said.

A New Metric for Readiness

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) called on all the services to meet a fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act requirement that the services submit a report on the readiness of every weapon system.

“These metrics show where Congress is getting the most out of its investment in military readiness,” a staffer from McClain’s office explained to Air Force Magazine. “This data also shows whether legacy systems are still cost effective or they can be retired to redirect resources elsewhere.”

None of the services had met the requirement to consolidate a metric of readiness to include with the fiscal 2023 budget.

McClain said knowing how much is spent to maintain readiness of a legacy system can help lawmakers decide to retire it or make the investments in the supply chain to keep the weapon system cost effective.

Space Force Needs Advanced Training

The vice chief of space operations said Space Force Guardians are currently able to meet “routine day-to-day operations” but not able to respond to an adversary in contested space unless advanced training is funded and integrated into the Space Force.

“Much work remains to be done,” Thompson said. “The training standards and equipment that served us well in the past are not sufficient to address the threats we expect to contend with now and in the future.”

The Space Force’s fiscal 2023 O&M budget of $4 billion includes investments in field centers for doctrine development, warfare, intelligence, and professional military education.

Thompson outlined the new investments in advanced training that are part of Space Force’s fiscal 2023 plans.

One shift is a new force generation model that introduces a rotational cycle to allow Guardians time for advanced training. The model would allow a satellite operator, intelligence specialist, or cyber defender the time to improve their skills individually, he said, then bring them together as a crew to complete their training.

In the second change, new equipment will help Guardians practice the tactics required to counter adversaries in space. Live and virtual training opportunities will use high-fidelity simulations and models to hone Guardian training.

“The development and building of this infrastructure is one of the highest priorities of the Space Force,” Thompson said. “Without it, Guardians would not be able to have defendable systems, proven tactics, or the ability to practice their craft against an opposition force.”

In the third change, Space Force plans to modernize its force design to keep up with evolving adversary capabilities.

“We must counter and defeat a thinking adversary who becomes more and more capable and dangerous every day,” Thompson said. “We must transition away from legacy systems to new force designs that complicate the adversary’s decision calculus and likelihood of success, first and foremost, to deter conflict in space, but ultimately to win, should an adversary choose to attack.”

After Successful Flight Tests for Skyborg, XQ-58 ‘Continuing to Evolve’

July 19, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, UNITED KINGDOM—A pair of XQ-58 Valkyrie drones completed a series of tests for the Air Force’s Skyborg program, an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous system to control uncrewed aircraft in a future manned/unmanned aircraft teaming concept.

Defense contractor Kratos, which manufactures the Valkyrie, announced the successful tests but offered no details on what those tests demonstrated or when they occurred.

They do, however, mark a milestone for Skyborg’s testing. The Autonomous Core System, the “brain” of the system, flew for the first time in April 2021 on a Kratos UTAP-22 Mako air vehicle. The next month, it flew on a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger. The XQ-58, meanwhile, has conducted a limited number of flight tests—six as of April 2021—showcasing some of its capabilities including releasing another drone in flight and carrying technology allowing an F-35 and F-22 to share data in-flight.

This marks the first public announcement of the Valkyrie flying for the Skyborg program. The drone was first developed as part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology portfolio and flew its first several tests before Kratos was selected in late 2020 as one of three companies to conduct Skyborg flights.

“It’s been a stepping stone type of project. You start small, and you keep growing and adding and adding capabilities to the flights,” Jeffrey Herro, a senior vice president in Kratos’ unmanned systems division, said in an interview with Air Force Magazine at the Farnborough International Airshow. “And this is like every other test program—it’s exactly what you do. In our business, we call it crawl, walk, run.

“And that’s what the Skyborg program has been doing. … This is a program about autonomy, really. That’s what the program is. So, how can I take these autonomy systems and evaluate them and then implement them on an unmanned aircraft? And it just so happened that our aircraft was chosen to be the testbed for these autonomy tests. And so we’ve been flying various payloads in support of the government’s activities on Skyborg.”

Herro declined to share any more details on the flight tests or what he believes they mean for the future of Skyborg, but he did say the program has acted as a “proof of concept” for the Air Force as the service pushes forward with its efforts to develop uncrewed, autonomous aircraft to fly alongside fighters and bombers—efforts that Air Force Secretary Kendall has included among his top priorities.

“I think it’s been a very important program for them,” Herro said. “I think that has been informative, so they’ll use it to inform certain decisions on how they can take this autonomy they’ve been working on … and employ it either on our aircraft or other aircrafts.”

Regardless, though, Herro expressed hope that the XQ-58 would advance to become its own program of record within the Air Force. While the drone has become associated with the Skyborg program, it was originally intended simply to be a capable, reusable drone whose cost would make its loss in combat permissible. That objective dovetailed with some of Skyborg’s goals, but Herro said it can be useful in other ways.

“There are other activities going on with the Valkyrie system right now,” Herro said. “We’re very happy with the performance of it. The performance on these last flights … was very good. We’re really happy with that. And we’re continuing to evolve other capabilities for other platforms. … Because at the end of the day, we’re building an airplane. And we’ve presented this airplane as a multi-mission-capable system.”

USAFE Won’t Add Extra F-35 Squadrons—But Will Get Rotation of F-22s, New Commander Says

July 19, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FAIRFORD, U.K.—At a NATO summit in June, President Joe Biden highlighted the two F-35 squadrons the U.S. is placing in the United Kingdom as part of his administration’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But once those two squadrons, both stationed at RAF Lakenheath, are built out, the U.S. has no immediate plans to further expand its permanent fleet of F-35 fighters in Europe, the new commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe said.

At the same time, Gen. James B. Hecker said in an exclusive interview with Air Force Magazine at the Royal International Air Tattoo, the number of American fifth-generation fighters on the continent will be bolstered.

“Right now, we have, I think it’s like 11 aircraft [at Lakenheath], so it’s just the one F-35 squadron that’s kind of stood up, and they’re half-filled,” Hecker said July 17. “They’re going to eventually have … by 2024 two different squadrons of F-35s there for a total of 52 aircraft, F-35s. We’ll still have the Strike Eagles there, so another two squadrons of [F-15E] Strike Eagles. Right now, that is the limit of the F-35s that we’re going to have in Europe from the United States.”

In addition to those Lakenheath fighters, though, Hecker said USAFE will continue to get help from F-35s stationed in the U.S.

“We have some at Hill Air Force Base. We have some at Vermont. Vermont, right now, coincidentally, has 12 F-35s over here in Europe,” Hecker said. “So we can get them here in a hurry, pretty quickly if we need to build up.”

Those F-35s from the Vermont Air National Guard arrived in early May at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, replacing F-35s from the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, which had arrived in February. While in Europe, the Vermont fighters have assisted with NATO’s air policing mission, conducting missions over Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, among others.

When they leave, Hecker indicated they’ll be succeeded by still more fifth-gen fighters.

“We’re bringing over F-22s … that are going to be coming over shortly, within a month, and they’ll spend four or five months over here,” Hecker said. “So we’re going to constantly cycle in fifth-generation in addition to what will eventually be two permanent squadrons at Lakenheath. So we’ll be cycling it in here in the meantime.”

That approach of swapping in and out extra fighters will last for around a year, Hecker said, as part of a broader Pentagon strategy to mainly rely on rotational forces to bolster the U.S. presence in Europe.

“This is not strictly just to the Air Force, but this is what the Army is going to be doing as well … So what we’re going to do is just kind of have six, 12 kinds of airplanes that will come in here for four months, and we’ll do that for about a year or so, in addition with all the permanent aircraft that we have stationed here,” Hecker said. “And that will increase our presence here, and then we’ll have to readjust and see what this thing looks like a year from now, and then we can adjust as necessary.”

There are several reasons why more permanently based F-35s won’t happen right now, Hecker added.

“We can’t just permanently bring a bunch of aircraft over here. We have about half the number of fighter squadrons that we did 30-some-odd years ago. So we just don’t have enough where we can just permanently put a bunch here,” said Hecker. “Likewise, the pacing threat is China. So being a team player, even though I’m [USAFE-AFAFRICA] now, I realize the National Defense Strategy says we need to keep our eyes on China as well. So we can’t just be asking for everything here because we also have to make sure we’re deterring China in the Pacific.”

But while the number of permanently based U.S. F-35s will stay at the 52 aircraft spread among two squadrons, the total number of F-35s across Europe is slated to grow substantially as more and more partner nations indicate they’ll buy the Joint Strike Fighter.

In recent months, Germany, Greece, Finland, and Switzerland have all indicated plans to buy F-35s, on top of nations like the U.K., Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland that have already signed deals to do so.

In 2021, former head of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Tod D. Wolters predicted that by 2030, there would be 450 F-35s spread across Europe. A year later, he bumped up that prediction to 550.

Now, Hecker is predicting even more, albeit by a later date.

“Right now, we have six countries that have the F-35 over here and have 120ish F-35s, which is very capable,” Hecker said. “But if you look down the road, by about the 2040 timeframe, we’re going to have over 600 F-35s here, and that will be a big, big deterrent against anybody who wants to take on NATO.”

Such a future will obviously increase interoperability, Hecker said. But the allies will still need to train and practice things such as tactics, he said—and they will need to work alongside fourth-generation aircraft, too.

“Not everybody is going to have F-35s. … Almost all countries will still have fourth generation,” Hecker said. “So we need to work on, how do we integrate fifth-generation with fourth-generation? Because once the mass goes up, we’re not going to have enough strictly fifth-gen that that’s all we use,” Hecker said. “So we need to use the F-35 to kind of knock down the door, gain some air superiority where we can get the fourth-generation in to finish and complete the job they can do once we get air superiority.”

F-35 JPO and Lockheed Martin Reach Handshake Deal for 375 Aircraft

July 19, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

More than 10 months beyond the originally expected goal, the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin have reached a “handshake deal” on Lots 15-17 of the fighter, which collectively will amount to only 375 aircraft.

No pricing information was included in the JPO’s July 18 announcement, which awaits formal signature. The announcement included no by-country or by-variant breakdown.

While the per-year production rate is unlikely to be the same across all three lots, at 375, production will average 125 aircraft a year. That’s well below the 156 per year that Lockheed Martin CEO James D Taiclet told stock analysts in a January conference call. In that call, acting Chief Financial Officer John Mollard said “the last thing you want is a sawtooth pattern” of up-and-down rates of production.

Negotiations had been dragging because of disagreements between Lockheed Martin and the JPO about volatile inflation and labor costs, both of which have shifted dramatically since the fall. Former JPO program executive officer retired Lt. Gen. Eric Fick had predicted a deal in November 2021, and then again in March of this year, but agreement on escalation costs proved elusive.

Both the JPO and Lockheed have suggested that the years-long pattern of lot-over-lot unit price reductions on the F-35 will end with Lot 15-17 because the package includes more-capable aircraft and because the military services have reduced their annual buys in anticipation of ramping up again when the Block 4 version of the airplane becomes available.

Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William A. LaPlante, in a statement released through the JPO, said he is pleased to announce the “handshake deal … on the basis of 375 aircraft.” He called the agreement a milestone for the program, the F-35 enterprise, “and our international partners.” He promised specifics when the contract is awarded.

“Our plan is to expedite contract award and deliver additional F-35 capacity” to the U.S. and its international partners, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt, the new F-35 PEO, who assumed his post in the last few weeks.

The JPO said “significant progress” was made in negotiations over the last three months. There were “significant real-world challenges—including the COVID-19 pandemic, associated supply chain impacts, and workforce disruptions, and inflation.”

The JPO said the quantity “may change based on any adjustments made” by Congress in its fiscal 2023 budget negotiations “and any orders requested by international partners.”

The company and the JPO said they are working first to ink a deal for Lots 15 and 16 “as a high priority.” The JPO will “exercise a contract option for Lot 17 in FY 2023” after the fiscal 2023 budget is made final, in order to take into account any congressional adds or international orders.

Lockheed Martin said through a spokesperson that the deal was reached through “a collaborative effort” with the JPO, “our suppliers and teammates, “in the midst of COVID-19 impacts and decreased F-35 quantities.”

The company said the parties were “able to achieve a cost per jet lower than record-breaking inflation trends” and noted that the version negotiated “includes modernized hardware needed to power Block 4 capabilities,” such as the Tech Refresh 2 and 3 upgrades that offer increased processing power. These improvements “will ensure the F-35 remains the world’s most capable aircraft in production today.”

SDA Awards $1.3B to L3Harris and Northrop Grumman for 28 Missile-Tracking Satellites

July 18, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Development Agency awarded L3Harris and Northrop Grumman Strategic Space Systems contracts to build Tranche 1 of the Tracking Layer for its planned National Defense Space Architecture, a multipurpose defense constellation.

Each company will build 14 low-Earth-orbit satellites to detect and track the infrared signatures of missile launches and flights. The fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act passed in March added funds to speed up contracting.

Emphasizing the project’s rapid timeline, SDA Director Derek Tournear told reporters July 18 that within two days of the appropriation “we released a solicitation for the Tracking Tranche 1 satellites, and [now] here were are, about 120 days later, with two performers on contract.”

SDA awarded $700 million to L3Harris, or about $50 million per satellite; and $671 million to Northrop Grumman, or about $44 million per satellite. The total cost to operationalize those satellites will total about $2.5 billion, including four rocket launches and the ground architecture to operate the constellation, Tournear said.

The rapid development timeline favored proven suppliers that have already commoditized satellite components, he acknowledged, making it possible for the satellites to be “developed and produced very quickly in a factory type of model.” He declined to name which subcontractors were working with the two primes. He offered only that the winning proposals involved “new entrants in a lot of the sub-component vendors.”

America’s ability to detect missile launches becomes more resilient with the addition of the Tracking Layer, Tournear said. The size of the constellation means the loss of any single satellite will not interrupt the ability to detect and track.

The Space Force’s Space Warfighting Analysis Center wants the missile-warning architecture to be proliferated constellations in both low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO). “So essentially … you have to take out LEO and MEO to take out the capabilities,” Tournear said.

SDA expects the new Tracking Layer to provide the added benefit of being able to not just detect missile launches but to track maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles, Tournear said. “We don’t have zero capability to do tracking, but most everything we do is designed around doing what we call missile warning,” Tournear said. “So we will not only be able to do the old-school mission of missile warning—detect the launch and predict the impact point—but we’ll be able to detect it as it’s maneuvering and changing its impact point and be able to send that [data] down and … tell an interceptor exactly where that missile is headed.”

The planned constellation includes the Tracking Layer and a Transport Layer for moving data around, which are together projected to number in the hundreds at any given time. New tranches going up every two years will refresh the technology. The satellites have a five-year predicted lifespan.

The first tranche of data-transport satellites will precede the first 28 missile-tracking satellites into space. Four launches required to take the tracking satellites to four different orbital planes start in April 2025.

Air Force Successfully Tests Redesigned AMRAAM AIM-120D3

July 18, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Air Force successfully tested its redesigned Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) Form, Fit, Function Refresh (F3R), firing the AIM-120D3 missile June 30 from an F-15E Strike Eagle at a target over the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida coast.

The first of five live-fire tests, it assessed a full hardware system redesign of early 2000s technology components in the Raytheon missile.

“The core objective of this test was to execute a long range shot that physically stressed the new missile hardware,” Maj. Heath Honaker, the 28th Test and Evaluation Squadron’s director of engineering and advanced programs, said in a statement provided to Air Force Magazine.

“Successful execution proves the redesigned hardware and software are progressing as expected and puts us one step closer to fielding a reliable, sustainable air-to-air capability to the warfighter,” Honaker added.

The $125 million F3R program began in December 2021 and included new software and missile guidance systems tailored to rapidly evolving threats, Raytheon officials said at the time of the award’s announcement.

The Air Force and members of the defense industry were involved in the lead-up to the test that took place in the Eglin Gulf Test Range against a QF-16 drone.

The 53rd Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., provided supporting entities such as the 28th TES, which designed, planned, and executed the test; and the 85th TES, which provided the aircraft and pilots. The 53rd Weapons Evaluation Group out of Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., provided the QF-16 drone; the 96th Range Group at Eglin provided data collection support and range infrastructure; and the 96th Test Wing safety office monitored live fire munitions of the Raytheon product.

The AIM-120D reached initial operational capability for the Air Force and Navy in 2015 as an active radar-guided intercept missile with GPS-aided navigation and electronic protection capabilities.

Honaker said F3R will enable “high-confidence AIM-120D production” for the remainder of the missile lifecycle.

Raytheon engineers used model-based systems engineering and other digital technologies to upgrade multiple circuit cards and hardware in the guidance section of the missile.

“F3R upgrades multiple circuit cards to address obsolescence, enhances the weapon’s capabilities, and extends the production line for the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, and our Allied partners,” Paul Ferraro, president of Air Power at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, said in a statement.

The live fire of the AIM-120D3 is the first of five planned missile shots to qualify the new missile for production and fielding.

African Coups Give China and Russia an Edge in Restive Sahel

July 18, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Service members working to fight terrorist groups expanding in Africa have their hands tied by restrictions on security cooperation with military-led countries, giving China and Russia an edge, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa Chidi Blyden told senators July 12.

The restive Sahel region of Africa consists of five vast, sub-Saharan nations plagued by terrorist groups that have helped unseat democracies and welcomed America’s strategic competitors. Three of the five nations—Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad—have undergone coups in the past two years. The coups trigger a State Department restriction on security cooperation and leave the Defense Department with just one main partner in the region, Niger, which is home to the heavily fortified Air Base 101 and Air Base 201, which are used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance of terrorist groups.

“Russia and the [People’s Republic of China] routinely provide training and defense articles to African nations,” Blyden told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on insecurity in the Sahel.

“While our African partners have stated repeatedly that they prefer our training and defense articles, they turn to our competitors when we are not responsive to their requests,” she added. “Ending our U.S. security cooperation has affected our bilateral engagement.”

Blyden called for finding a way to continue engaging with the Sahel nations so that access and influence are not lost to America’s competitors, but senators sought to further restrict opportunities for cooperation.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) urged the State Department to impose travel sanctions on foreign government officials who were involved in the coups. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), meanwhile, introduced legislation to further expand the vetting of foreign military officers before they are allowed to participate in U.S. training programs.

Robert Jenkins, assistant administrator of the Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization at the U.S. Agency for International Development, painted a picture of what a loss of American influence looks like in the Sahel.

“It’s a region where we’ve seen young people dancing in support of military takeovers, waving Russian flags, and repeating the disinformation that targets them relentlessly,” he said, describing scenes from Mali’s May 17, 2022, coup.

The suspension of U.S. assistance to Mali, coupled with the withdrawal of French counter-terrorist forces, led Mali’s ruling junta to invite the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, implicated in many civilian deaths in Ukraine, to help provide security.

Blyden said DOD is working closely with France on the withdrawal of its 2,400 troops to Niger, where the U.S. maintains some 800 troops conducting ISR on terrorist groups; building partner capacity; and working to counter China and Russia’s influence.

The shrinking U.S. and French foothold in the Sahel means the United States may start to reposition forces in other African countries, especially littoral states that are now threatened by the expansion of terrorist groups.

“Our operations and the support that we provide will continue in a way, but it will be spread more widely,” said Blyden.

“We see the spread moving towards the coastal West Africa countries,” she said, referring to the more prosperous nations on Africa’s west coast. “We’re seeing an opportunity with the French repositioning to really rethink where it is that we might need bolstering of African partners to be able to continue to counter the violent extremist threat.”

Mauritania is one nation that straddles both the Sahel and littoral regions that may benefit from a deeper partnership, the defense official said.

Blyden said that despite the restriction on security cooperation, the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes money to counter Russia and China on the continent, and DOD is looking at programs to counter China and the Wagner Group’s influence.

“We have to recognize that there is a great powers competition going on,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), calling on DOD to find ways to do more. “Russia and China are both very actively engaged on the African continent, and they are also very actively engaged within the Sahel.”

U.S. Air Forces Africa and U.S. Africa Command did not respond to requests by Air Force Magazine for comment. The Pentagon did not immediately provide further details on the security threat and challenges faced.

The Senate Armed Services Committee will host a confirmation hearing July 21 for Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Langley for promotion to general and to be commander of U.S. Africa Command, the senior military official responsible for engaging with nations in the region.

NATO’s New Air Commander Prepares for New Phase of Vigilance Along Eastern Front

July 18, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FAIRFORD, U.K.—Two weeks into his job as the commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and NATO Allied Air Command, Gen. James B. Hecker has gotten a running start on one of his top priorities—building partnerships.

On the sidelines of the Royal International Air Tattoo from July 15 to 17, Hecker met with air chiefs from dozens of other countries to introduce himself and start building relationships.

“We had, I think it was 67 air chiefs here from all different countries that were here over the last three days,” Hecker told Air Force Magazine in an exclusive interview at RIAT. “And I have had several meetings … with air chiefs from other countries, particularly from the NATO countries, and got to know them—which would have taken me six to seven months to do that just flying around to different countries—so this has really helped me.”

One of the major topics of those discussions, Hecker said, was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fears of further aggression. The developments of the past several months have created an “urgency,” he said, especially among countries bordering Russia.

Like Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, Hecker has emphasized his experience of intensely focusing on Russia during the Cold War as something the Air Force—USAFE in particular—will have to get back to. In doing so, he said at RIAT, he hopes to show Russia that further aggression is “not worth it.”

“We want to make sure that we have a good deterrent, but we want to make sure that we deter in a way that is not provocative in nature, that will make this escalate, if you will,” Hecker said.

Part of the U.S. and NATO response to Russia’s war with Ukraine has been to increase NATo’s air policing along its eastern flank, and that’s resulted in substantially increased instances of fighters scrambling to meet Russian aircraft near NATO borders.

But as the war has dragged on for several months, longer than many expected, USAFE and NATO Allied Air Command have adjusted, Hecker said.

“When the invasion first occurred, we had three different [combat air patrols, or CAPS] that we manned 24/7. And that lasted the first couple days until we kind of got a sense for what was going on,” Hecker said. “And then we reduced that down a little bit, but still well above the air policing levels. A lot of times we were just sitting alert. Now we’re actually doing active … CAPs, fully armed with the two-ship fighters from all kinds of different nations.”

Over the past three or four months, Hecker added, NATO has reached a “steady state” in terms of numbers of patrols and hours. Now, as the war continues and the AAC looks to transition once more to an alert but sustainable long-term posture, Hecker said he wants to use a new approach to supplement the enhanced air policing mission.

“We’re trying to get different countries to interact with one another, and we call it Enhanced Vigilance Activities,” Hecker said. “And so we’ll get some aircraft from Poland and Hungary, and they will meet in a certain area, and instead of just doing the combat air patrol with live weapons on, they’ll go out and basically just do training, and exercise and fight against one another and work with one another,” Hecker said.

“So if we do have to do something, we’re interoperable—we’ve worked together in the past. So we’re increasing the number of those kinds of things that we’re doing, which is helping out a lot.”