New Bill Looks to Ease Military Child Care Shortage

April 18, 2024 | By David Roza

A new bipartisan law introduced April 18 promises to help ease the nationwide military child care shortage by allowing the Defense Department to create 12 partnerships with private and public child care centers on or near military bases. The hope is that those first-of-its-kind partnerships, along with new incentives and authorities to recruit and retain child care providers, will drive up capacity at those locations, where many families are stuck with monthslong waiting lists.

Introduced by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the Expanding Child Care for Military Families Act comes a week after the House Armed Services Committee released a report investigating military quality-of-life issues, including child care.

“[A]ccessibility due to long waitlists, particularly for infant care, persists as a significant challenge and source of frustration for service members and their families,” the report said.

Both the military and civilian workforce suffer from a nationwide shortage of providers, which is felt even more acutely at remote military installations. The report cited wait times as long as six to seven months. To make things more difficult, military families move frequently and often work odd hours when most child care centers are closed. The Defense Department received funds to build 17 new child development centers (CDCs) since 2019, but many of those are not yet complete.

To hire new workers, the Defense Department is offering wages comparable to civilian employers, but the problem is those are still often not high enough, and many child care workers switch to retail industries, the report found. Still, some incentives are having an effect: the Air Force reported last year that direct-care staffing levels increased from 72 to 77 percent from 2022 to 2023 after the branch began providing complete child care fee waivers for the first child of staff at military CDCs, plus a 25 percent discount for additional children.

The Quality of Life Panel Report called for making those benefits universal across the services and cover up to 100 percent for additional children. It also called for paying military child care workers more; for quarterly briefs from the Defense Department on how it is addressing staffing shortages; and for a study on whether hiring authorities for child care workers can be improved.

The new bill seems to address several of those issues. Establishing partnerships with eligible providers should increase capacity, improve child care workforce development, and recruit and retain more providers. To sweeten the pot, the bill also calls for the military to provide certification and training opportunities at participating child care centers.

That kind of support could make a difference for Cora Hoppe, director of the nonprofit, New Hampshire-based Rochester Child Care Center. Hoppe told NBC News she had to lay off a quarter of her staff due to a tight budget and high operating costs.

“There’s no wiggle room. There’s absolutely none,” she said. “The DOD’s backing would be huge, because then it would allow us to build our capacity.”

Beyond local providers, the bill would also authorize the Defense Department to partner with national service agencies such as AmeriCorps to place volunteers at child care centers. It would also encourage the department to recruit and offer training for eligible military spouses.

Should the bill be passed, the pilot program would start no later than Jan. 1, 2026. After that, the Pentagon would have to report on the status of the program every year until the pilot ends on Dec. 31 2030—or longer if the pilot is extended.

“As a mom and a new grandma, I know it takes a village to raise a child and that our military members need high-quality, affordable child care for their young ones,” Ernst said in a statement. “By boosting training and recruitment efforts, this bipartisan bill will ensure military kids are safe and loved while their parents diligently train and prepare to protect our nation.”

Why a Civilian Defense Employee Died After a C-17 Test Flight Last Year

April 18, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Air Force blamed the death of a 33-year-old Missile Defense Agency civilian employee after a C-17 test flight in August on decompression sickness complicated by his underlying medical conditions, including obesity, hypertension, an enlarged heart, and cardiovascular disease, according to the results of an accident investigation board released April 12.

However, the report leaves several questions unanswered, such as how the employee was cleared for the flight, why medical specialists aboard did not recognize his symptoms, and why the test flight continued as planned, even after it was clear he was experiencing a medical emergency.

The C-17 took off from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson at about 10 a.m. on August 21, flying over the Pacific Ocean past the Aleutian Islands. The MDA employee was there to help test out a simulated high-altitude, medium range ballistic missile launch. Following procedure, the crew donned helmets and oxygen masks to start pre-breathing pure oxygen 30 minutes before the test to prevent decompression sickness.

At about 2 p.m., the crew opened the C-17 cargo doors, conducted the test, then closed the doors after about five minutes and repressurized the jet. But after the doors closed, the MDA employee began sweating excessively and making “motions of distress,” the report wrote. Crew members flagged down High Altitude Airdrop Mission Support (HAAMS) physiological technicians, who oversee crew safety on un-pressurized high altitude flights. Barely able to breath, the MDA employee used a whiteboard to communicate, but he could only scribble illegibly, the report said. He also indicated pain and a lack of mobility in his right arm.

All of those symptoms indicate decompression sickness, investigation board president Brig. Gen. Derek Salmi noted in the report. Also known as “the bends,” decompression sickness is when changing air pressure forms nitrogen bubbles in the body that can pressure nerves, damage tissue, and block blood flow. The procedure for decompression sickness is to put the patient on pure oxygen, descend to normal air pressure, land immediately at the closest airfield, and, if necessary, put the patient in a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber.

But the HAAMS technicians failed to recognize the symptoms of decompression sickness and instead treated the patient for hyperventilation. They placed him on an emergency oxygen mask as the aircraft cabin altitude decreased below 10,000 feet, where oxygen masks are not required. One of the HAAMS technicians thought the employee was stable and removed his mask, but his right arm was “droopy,” he had difficult standing up and “looked like a guy that had been drinking all night,” according to a crew member.

The crew notified the pilot but said the MDA employee was in a stable condition, then moved him to the floor near the front of the aircraft. The flight deck trusted the HAAMS techs to care for the ill employee and provide updates, but it is unclear how often those updates were delivered, and the patient continued to slur his words, breath heavy, appear in pain, and look pale. The mission was planned for seven-hour duration, and the flight landed at 5:00 p.m. as originally scheduled without any indication of rushing to land.

The instructor pilot recalled feeling shocked at seeing the MDA employee’s condition for the first time, saying he “looked like he had a stroke,” and did not appear stable. Doctors at a nearby hospital said he needed a hyperbaric chamber, but the nearest one was in Seattle and air transport would not be available until the next morning.

Over the next 12 hours, the patient’s blood pressure dropped, and his lungs, liver, and kidneys failed. Despite the physicians’ best efforts, the employee went into cardiac arrest at 8:06 the next morning and was pronounced dead 26 minutes later.

Analysis

Salmi said the initial misdiagnosis “likely delayed available treatment measures such as continued oxygen use … as well as descent by the aircraft to a lower cabin altitude.” Another problem was the lack of follow-up care during the return flight “despite the persistent and significant symptoms” exhibited by the MDA employee.

Even so, the general said the employee’s case of decompression sickness, combined with his underlying conditions, was so severe that the outcome may have been the same. The report cited a history of hypertension, an enlarged heart, and blockage of the coronary arteries as contributing factors. How was an employee with such conditions allowed on the flight?

The MDA employee had a current Federal Aviation Administration Class III physical, “the simplest medical certificate for private, recreational, and student pilots to obtain,” according to Flying Magazine. He had been flying high-altitude test airdrop missions for a little over a year, and the August 21st sortie was his sixth such mission. In fact, he was considered “an expert in this mission set … and was actively instructing another MDA colleague as part of the mission.”

Even had he been in better shape, the employee may still have developed decompression sickness: Salmi wrote that recent medical studies found a 30 percent chance for anyone taking part in high-altitude operations to develop some symptoms, ranging from mild to severe. The Air Force did not respond before publication to a question of whether anyone was held accountable as a result of the report.

Earlier this month, the Air Force released an investigation into the death of a contractor who was killed last year when she walked into the moving propeller of an MQ-9 during ground tests. The death was blamed on a confluence of factors, including inadequate training, poor lighting, noisy conditions, and a rush to finish testing, all of which contributed to the victim’s loss of situational awareness while she took telemetry readings.

The deaths of the two civilians helped make fiscal year 2023 a difficult year for aviation accidents. Air Force Times reported two deaths, 10 aircraft destroyed, and 75 major non-combat aviation mishaps in total: a five-year high. Those mishaps occur as maintainers and aircrew try to meet mission requirements with a dwindling number of aging aircraft.

Meanwhile, the Air Force is recalculating its approach to risk as the service adopts agile combat employment (ACE), concept where small teams of Airmen launch and recover aircraft at remote or austere airfields, then relocate to avoid being targeted by enemy missiles. Many Airmen expect to carry out those operations without support and without connection to higher command. On April 2, the Air Force Safety Center unveiled a new plan to keep pace. Part of the plan is to use machine learning models to review safety data and provide better analysis for safety officers to improve their processes.

“Mishap reporting data is a lagging indicator and limited tool,” the center wrote in a release. “Our intent is to develop analytical tools to assist commanders with proactive risk reduction, mishap prevention, and maximized readiness.”

Q&A: Outgoing AFCENT Boss Grynkewich on the Future of the Middle East

April 18, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

When the National Defense Strategy was issued in 2022, the U.S. military mission in the Middle East took a back seat to the ongoing challenges of deterring China or Russia. But since then, no region has been more combustible. From Iran and its proxies to the Islamic State, American forces have had to contend with multiple threats.

As head of Air Forces Central, Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich has been at the heart of almost all U.S. military action in the Middle East, from overseeing airstrikes against Iranian proxy groups to protecting troops as America’s air defense commander for the region. In addition to his critical role in combating immediate threats, he set up a task force to develop future capabilities.

Just before handing over his command to Lt. Gen. Derek C. France on April 18 to become director for operations (J3) on the Joint Staff, Grynkewich played a pivotal role in the successful effort to help Israel defeat a massive Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel from April 13 into the early morning hours of April 14. Later that day, he spoke with Air & Space Forces Magazine and reflected on his tenure as head of AFCENT. This transcript has been edited for length.

Q: Where do you see the region going forward? Are we going to get stability? Should we be hopeful or not?

A: All three of the world’s major monotheistic religions have deep, deep roots here, and it is an absolute, just phenomenal place. The people of the region are also some of the most hospitable people that I’ve ever met. They open their homes, they open their hearts, they open their countries, and they’re very proud of all the cultural and religious aspects of their particular nations, and they should be. So I find it to be a region that is just full of hope.

Now, it has also been a region that has historically had challenges with stability. Everyone has seen that, everyone talks about it. If we back ourselves out of the current crisis and we take the long view, I think we’re on a trajectory over time that leads us to a better future for all the people of the region, no matter what country they come from, or what their religious or ethnic background is. We clearly saw that we were on that trajectory prior to October 7th. This is a major crisis with tons of opportunity for things to get set back a bit. But over the long arc of history here in the region, it’s inevitable that we’ll get to the point where we find a prosperous, peaceful area.

Q: CENTCOM has focused on improving integrated air and missile defense in the region for a while. Where does that stand now?

A: We’re trying to stitch together partners in the region who share a perspective of a threat, share concern of the threats to stability in the region, which primarily emanate from Iran with a large number of ballistic missiles, and be in a position where we’re able to share information, share threat warning. And the ultimate goal is to get to a much deeper and fuller integration. We’ve made tremendous progress. There is a lot that’s been accomplished.

Q: How have you managed your role as the area air defense commander, and how did the progress you mentioned come about?

A: We have always had a very tight relationship across the joint force in the air defense community. And a lot of that tight relationship is physically present in the Combined Air Operations Center, in the CAOC. We’ve got broad expertise, both from an air perspective but also from an air defense perspective that’s right here. The doctrine on joint air defense is very mature. It’s something that I felt the need to get very smart on very quickly. What fundamentally our role is as the area air defense commander is to look at what our posture level should be across the region, set the appropriate posture and readiness level based on the threat that we see, and then take whatever assets we have that are either under our tactical control or in a direct support role across the joint force, in the coalition, and stitch them together, so that we can synchronize the fires and effects when we get into that air defense fight. We’ve done a lot of work synchronizing all the way down to the base level.

There have been a ton of exercises that we’ve done. A lot of those in the counter-UAS realm, a number against ballistic missiles over time, and it’s been really valuable.

Then the one other thing that gets into the regional missile defense is we coordinate with adjacent capability—so even if they’re not directly supporting the CENTCOM area air defense commander, if there are adjacent coalition or allied capabilities, we’re able to have enough connectivity with other nations’ air defense operations centers or their AOCs, depending on what their architecture is, to go, ‘Hey, we see something coming, are you going to take it or we? We share threat warning, share the picture that we see, and make very rapid decisions across an even broader coalition than those forces we directly control and command.

Q: Task Force 99 was stood up to be an experimental unit with small drones, but what are they operationally doing? And how you envision them operating in the future?

A: They’ve got a couple of tasks from me that have really stayed consistent since we stood them up in the fall of 2022. I asked him to work on improving our air domain awareness, I asked them to look at how we could improve our targeting cycle, and asked them to look at how we could present dilemmas to the adversary. And we’ve made different amounts of progress on each of those.

Air domain awareness has proven very difficult. We’ve done some experimentation with high-altitude balloons, trying to see if there were particular sensors that we could launch on them that would be able to fill gaps in our surveillance coverage. That work is still, I would argue, in the experimental phase. It’s more expensive, it takes more time, so that’s going to be something that they continue to work on. We haven’t really closed any major technologies yet or brought them into the field. But they do continue to work on that.

The second area was to improve our targeting. We have made some pretty good progress on that. In the first six to 12 months of Task Force 99, back in a period where we had some significant threats to our forces in certain areas, we were able to use this small short-range drone and go out and do some tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, ISR missions, and go out and find some things that were threats to our forces. So operationally, we’ve used some of those very short-range drones.

As the environment evolved over here and we kind of shifted our focus on what we’re defending, I asked Task Force 99 to look at longer-range, more persistent, and higher-fidelity platforms without bumping up the price point significantly. The idea for the ISR work is to get to some level of affordable mass, is what I would call it. I need a volume of ISR capacity that I don’t have with our traditional platforms. Particularly in some of our operations we’ve been conducting in Yemen, more ISR is always going to be helpful. So that’s where their main focus is now. We’ve got several platforms that are in evaluation right now. I think over the coming months, you’re going to see some of them get to the field. They have been putting a ton of effort into that targeting cycle and the ISR platforms that we might be able to get and improve our capability there. I think there’s going to be real gain there.

I think this has the opportunity to give us, as an Air Force, a new approach to platform acquisition and a new way to think about capacity that we might not have thought of in the past. So those are some of the things that I’ll take forward as I go out of this job and provide back to Air Force leadership on some insights from our lessons.

The last one was to cause dilemmas to our adversaries. In that case, you can think about any number of one-way UAS attacks and large swarms of UASs that you have to deal with, it can be a big operational problem. What I would like to do is be able to turn the tables and provide one-way attack UAS capability or one-way UAS harassment capability that I could use against our adversaries. We’re making some progress in that area. It’s still work that’s ongoing. But there is a potential for real capability and capacity here that would have uses not just across the U.S. CENTCOM [area of responsibility], but I think in a number of different areas.

Q: So have some of these capabilities been used operationally?

A: Some of them have been used operationally and we have several more that I think will be used operationally in the next six months.

Q: How is Task Force 99 being formalized, because you have pulling Airmen from many different jobs. How is it going to work as a unit going forward?

A: We do have plans to make it more permanent. Those billets are being aligned right now. There’s some real benefits to rotational manpower and people coming over for six months rotations, and that you get new ideas and fresh looks at problems, if you will. So we want to preserve some of that. But we also recognize that there’s a need for some stability in terms of how you run the program and how the tasks are metered out.

The plan we’ve got moving forward is to move from a purely rotational model, where almost everyone is swapping out every six months, which has some benefits, to now a model where you’ve got kind of a mix and match. You’ve got the stability in some key leadership positions and some key technical positions. But at the same time, you leverage the advantages you get from those new looks. We’ll have to make some decisions of where we go from there. It’s something that I think will sustain and potentially become a model for other parts of the Air Force as well.

Q: What was the biggest lesson you learned as AFCENT commander? What is your takeaway?

AFCENT is a microcosm of the U.S. Air Force, because we have Airmen that deployed here from every other part of the world, every major command of the Air Force. We get to see Airmen of all walks of life, every background, as they all come together for a cohesive team here operating in an AOR in what still very much executing combat operations.

If you asked me what I’m most proud of, it’s that those same Airmen have made tremendous strides and adapted to the new realities of the region and particularly here in the headquarters. We shifted from our focus on the missions that we’ve been doing for a long time of counter-[violent extremist organization] and counterinsurgency. That is not our main concern anymore. We still support some of those operations, but we are much more focused on long-term campaigning and readiness should that campaign require it for major combat operations.

There are a couple of things that, as an Airman, I’m very proud that we’ve accomplished. We clearly provide exceptional command and control capability to the U.S. Central Command commander. The CAOC, as distributed as it is between our forward headquarters and back at Shaw Air Force Base, that distributed node of capability has tremendous ability to synchronize joint fires and effects, to plan and to think through hard problems, and to accelerate the joint targeting cycle at speeds that we haven’t been able to do for decades.

The Air Force has had core functions or core missions that have changed over the years. One of them was always command and control. The conversation has evolved to talk about JADC2 and the future of C2. I think you see the future of C2 here, and you see the value of our long history of providing that exquisite operational-level command and control and the benefits that it brings to the joint force.

Q: You’re also in the only place where you’re fighting a war. What lessons can you teach the U.S. military broadly about preparing for so-called Great Power Competition—or preparing for anything? We all talk about future war, but what can we learn from the fight that’s happening now?

A: The world’s a very unstable place. There’s tremendous benefits from serving anywhere, whether you’re up in Europe, focused on the Ukraine-Russia threat, or you’re in the Pacific looking at our pacing challenge. I think what AFCENT has to offer is a place where you can gain real-life combat experience. Wherever it is, you’re executing mission command, you’re executing Agile Combat Employment, your execution of tactical actions in the cockpit or repairing a runway, or whatever it happens to be, you get real-world experience with all of that.

In some cases, unfortunately, you also come under fire. And those Airmen who have come under fire over here will know when they go to other fights, they will know what that feels like. In the years ahead, the A1Cs and senior Airmen and the lieutenants and captains who have done that will be better combat leaders because they’ve experienced it once before. So I think we bring value to the Air Force in terms of gaining that combat experience at the tactical and operational level. Being able to practice in a real world, austere environment, a harsh environment. That’s fundamentally different from some of the other harsh environments, but harshness is harshness. We give the Air Force a place for Airmen to prove their mettle, hone their leadership skills, and be ready for the next fight.

Q: What does “campaigning” mean to you? That can be an amorphous term.

A: It’s about our longer-term actions and posture here in the region; it’s about building those partnerships and deterring our adversaries. It’s thinking through what are the operations, activities, and investments that we need to do every single day that will have positive long-term outcomes, as opposed to just thinking about what’s coming down the pipe in the next [air tasking order] cycle. That is significant, but I think it is really going to pay dividends in the future.

Q: What do you expect in your future role as J3?

A: I know I’ve got a lot to learn. As I mentioned, I’ve been in U.S. Central Command for a while. I know that there’s a lot that I’ve got to dig into and fundamentally understand as much as I can.

Q: Do you have any parting thoughts as AFCENT commander?

A: Thanks to the Airmen that served over here with me over the last few years, and there’s been a lot. Thanks to the leaders that have been willing to come over here. Thanks to my sister component commanders and U.S. Central Command for all the support that they’ve given. And finally, a thanks to my own family for continuing to support me and allowing me to serve. It has been the honor of a lifetime. I’ve learned and grown as a leader myself in this position, and wouldn’t trade the experience for anything else.

Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) commander, thanks Airman 1st Class Chelsea Kindle, 79th Fighter Generation Squadron assistant dedicated crew chief, for her support to his final flight as the AFCENT commander April 9, 2024, at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal

Upset with Divestment, Congress Impatient for Fighter Recap Strategy

April 17, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Top Air Force leaders may have to provide Congress with extensive justification for further cuts in the fighter force, after being grilled in budget testimony by members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees unhappy with divestitures in various fleets.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) complained to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin that a Fighter Recapitalization Plan, mandated in last year’s defense bill and due to Congress March 30, has not yet appeared.

“We need to make sure we have fighters in the air” in sufficient numbers to deter China and other world adversaries, Slotkin said, echoing remarks of many members who complained of fighter cuts in their districts. Under the Air Force’s fiscal 2025 budget request, the service would shrink its fighter fleet to historic lows.

Slotkin noted that she “co-led an amendment last year in the NDAA” that mandates the fighter recap strategy, and “There will be a number of us who are working on a bill in this year’s [National Defense Authorization Act] which will say, before you can retire fighter aircraft you must show your math on your plan. So we are taking this to the next step.”

Slotkin added that swift provision of the fighter recap strategy would “help us understand” the Air Force’s thinking and “give us more confidence” that the service is not recklessly reducing near-term capacity in favor of longer-term modernization, at a time when armed conflicts are flaring in numerous places.

Kendall said he and Allvin have reviewed a “final draft” of the strategy and that it will be “over here as soon as we finish coordination.”

Members on both the HASC and SASC also complained about cuts to fleets like the E-3 AWACS as well as smaller-than-planned buys of EA-37 Compass Call aircraft, in addition to persistent questioning about the decision to divest the A-10 fleet.

Allvin said the advance of Chinese weaponry have turned platforms like the E-3 into “cannon fodder” and most of those aircraft being divested would wind up “at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean” if they went to war.

Kendall and Allvin also told lawmakers that they had to reduce their purchase of new fighters—F-35s and F-15EXs—to comply with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which snipped a further two percent from USAF’s budget for 2025.

A number of members noted the success of F-15E units—notably the 335^th Fighter Squadron from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina—in shooting down drones and missiles fired by Iran against targets in Israel April 14. Numerous reports posit that more than half of the 160 or so weapons that made it most of the way to their targets were shot down by U.S. assets. They said the success of the jets shows they are not irrelevant.

Kendall responded that Iran’s attack against the combined capabilities of Israel and its allies—a “highly contested” action—is comparable to the U.S. going against China’s forces, and that the U.S. must come up with far better means to hold Chinese targets at risk.

The Air Force plans to about halve its F-15E fleet to 99 airframes. Service leaders have said they must use the savings from operating older and often obsolescent aircraft to rapidly modernize the force with new equipment.

Kendall said he is less concerned about short-term deficits in capacity than the need to modernize as rapidly as possible, noting that for the first time since World War II, the U.S. confronts an adversary in China “whose purchasing power exceeds our own.” He also reiterated that “we have run out of margin” and the Air Force has no time left to prepare counters for China’s armed forces, which he said are being purpose-built to defeat the U.S. military.

Kendall came under heavy criticism from Rep. Don Davis (D), who represents North Carolina’s 1st District near Seymour Johnson AFB, where USAF plans to divest a squadron of F-15Es.

Davis complained about the late fighter recap report, and said it’s needed to make thoughtful decisions about what retirements Congress will allow. He said the divestiture of a squadron of F-15Es would cost 520 jobs in and around the base, which “would have a tremendous impact on our community in eastern North Carolina,” among the “most economically distressed” areas in the state.

Kendall promised the report “shortly” and said the Air Force does take into account the economic effects of divestiture decisions.

“We try overall to minimize those impacts. Unfortunately, sometimes they are unavoidable,” Kendall said, adding that the Air Force tries to make such transitions “as painless as possible for the community.”

Davis pressed Kendall about what other missions will be brought to Seymour Johnson to make up for the cuts, but Kendall said that he is “not aware of an alternative” mission to substitute for the F-15Es. When Kendall said he could not immediately explain what alternatives had been explored, Davis, who described himself as a proud Air Force veteran, said “we really have to look hard at the decisions that are being made. And I’m not satisfied today with your answers.”

The discussion was reminiscent of painful debate over various rounds of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) that took place in the 1990s and 2000s, which was not lost on Kendall. He said he knows there’s “no interest in a BRAC in this body” but that the Air Force has “about 20 percent excess capacity in our installations” and “we do need to take a look more fundamentally, frankly at our installation posture and try to address it just as a whole.” Budget constraints are only allowing the Air Force to fund facilities refresh at 1.6 percent of replacement cost, and “we’d like to be at two percent.”

“What that leads to is slow deterioration; eventually you end up doing emergency repairs only” on USAF’s real estate.

DOD Still Has No Plan To Stop Using Russian Gas in Europe

April 17, 2024 | By David Roza

Nearly four months after the deadline, the Defense Department has not fulfilled a congressional mandate to submit a plan for weaning U.S. military bases in Europe off of Russian energy. That reliance could “be helping to fund the Russian war effort to the tune of a million dollars a week,” Brown University researchers wrote in a 2022 analysis.

The Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act called the issue “a critical challenge for national security activities” and directed the department to make plans to reduce and eventually eliminate reliance on Russian energy for each base across Europe. Specifically, the bill called for a description of steps that each base in Europe could take, including investments in technology, infrastructure and renewable energy, to be submitted no later than 12 months after the bill was enacted on Dec. 23, 2022. The goal was to eliminate use of Russian energy within five years of each base writing its plan—but progress has stalled.

“Our bases are still running on Russian gas, which I just find mind-blowing that we have to talk about this and, frankly, that Congress is having to push the department on this,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness, said at a hearing April 16. “One would think that this would be something that the department would be pushing itself on.”

At the hearing, Waltz presented a map published by Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab that charts the estimated flow of Russian oil, gas, and coal to U.S. bases across Europe in 2020. Researchers estimated that before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, U.S. bases in Europe relied on Russian fossil fuels to meet 30 percent of their annual energy needs, which translates to about half a million barrels of oil from Russia every year.

That supply “represents a serious threat” to security, the Lab wrote, since Russia has the option to cut off a major source of energy. But it also “fuels Russia’s war machine,” Waltz said.

Waltz is not the only one concerned: despite a ban on Russian oil products, the European Union continues to buy millions of barrels of refined fuels originating at least in part in Russia, according to Politico. Loopholes allow countries to buy the banned Russian crude as long as it is refined into fuel somewhere else, such as India or Turkey. In November, the Washington Post investigated how the loopholes affect U.S. military supply chains, finding that the Pentagon paid nearly $1 billion in contracts since March 2022 to a Greek refinery that receives crude from Turkey, a step which obscures the crude’s origins in Russia.

“The fact that those shipments contained material that originated in Russia underscores the porousness of the sanctions and the failure to aggressively enforce them,” the Post reported.

When Waltz asked for the status of energy plans, Brendan Owens, the assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment, said the topic was at the front of mind of installation commanders during a recent trip through Europe.

“This was a significant point of conversation everywhere we went,” he said. “They are posturing themselves to bring the energy resources that they need increasingly closer to the fence line.”

However, Owens did not have a timeline for the delivery of the plan, saying that it was still “under development.” Waltz pressed him to submit a timeline this week.

“Can you imagine if I took this to one of my town halls?” the chairman asked, referring to the map. “Right now, as we’re talking about billions and billions going to Ukraine … and their [taxpayers’] money is basically fueling the other side of the war through our bases and, oh by the way, making our service members vulnerable.”

Waltz’ critique comes as the Air Force and the Pentagon writ large seeks to shore up the vulnerability of its energy infrastructure to enemy attack and to climate change. Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations and environment, said bases are looking to use microgrids to sustain their own power through on-base sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, biomass, nuclear microreactors, and/or fossil-fuel powered generators. The idea is that if one source fails, the system overall can keep chugging.

“By building redundancy into your installation in terms of power and energy … it’s like putting a power bar into your room because now you can plug in power sources that you want,” Chaudhary said in March.

Implementing a similar mindset could help in Europe, Waltz said.

“You get two for one,” he said. “You’re off of gas, you’re off of oil and you get an operational resiliency—and gee—you start impacting Putin’s war machine, for which we’re asking the American people to keep digging deeper into their pockets to combat against.”

Air Force Unveils First Picks For New ‘Quick Start’ Funding Stream

April 16, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall revealed two high-priority programs to be funded with new authority circumventing the traditional lengthy budget process.

First up are resilient position, navigation, and timing capability and command, control and communications (C3) battle management for moving target indication, Kendall told the Senate Armed Services Committee April 16.

The new authority, granted in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, allows the Pentagon to spend up to $100 million to begin work on urgent capabilities outside of the Congressionally-passed budget. Though the law applies to all services, Kendall and his team conceived of the idea and pushed hard for its adoption.

“The DAF deeply appreciates the ‘Quick Start’ provision placed in the FY24 NDAA and will take full advantage of this opportunity to save precious time,” Kendall, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin, and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman wrote in written testimony to the SASC.

Kendall, who formerly served as the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, has expressed frustration that programs take years to begin, as they must first make it into the defense budget, which even under the best of circumstances does not start until the next fiscal year. The current budget passed six months late, forcing the government to operate under a continuing resolution as a stopgap measure.

“Thanks to the support from Congress, this initiative will leverage the success of rapid acquisition authority, marking a pivotal moment in advancing national security objectives with unprecedented speed and efficiency,” Kendall said in a press release. “Quick Start will kickstart efforts intended to develop solutions to emerging problems, ensuring rapid progress from concept to implementation.”

Kendall’s original proposal sought up to $300 million for urgent programs, but Congress ultimately approved up to $100 million. However, Kendall and other service officials have stressed that the authority is not about maximizing funding but rather about enabling relatively inexpensive early development work and evaluation, potentially saving significant time compared to waiting for an entire budget cycle. The programs unveiled as part of Quick Start will likely appear in the fiscal 2026 budget.

The secretary of defense must approve the programs after each service submits detailed proposals about the programs’ capabilities and why they need to move fast. The services then need to shift the programs from Quick Start to the regular acquisition process within a year.

Details of the new programs and initiatives are scarce. How much money was allocated to each new program was not specified, and Kendall described the capability in broad terms. But the secretary sees improving battle management as a necessity, appointing a C3BM czar, Brig. Gen. C.G. Luke Cropsey, to accelerate and streamline the branch’s efforts. Meanwhile, the rest of the military relies on precision, navigation and timing systems to conduct day-to-day operations, which could make them a tempting target for China or Russia in a conflict.

“We selected these projects because we recognized their potential to benefit the Joint Forces and the nation and we’re appreciative that the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense expedited their review and approval—resulting in less than four months between enactment of the authority to execution of the first projects,” Kendall said in the release.

F-35 Program Says GAO Report Title Misleading; Sustainment Costs Coming Down

April 16, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-35 Joint Program Office is challenging the title of the Government Accountability Office’s most recent assessment of the multinational fighter, saying it implies the F-35 is getting more expensive to operate when the opposite is true.

The GAO report: “F-35 Sustainment: Costs Continue to Rise While Planned Use and Availability Has Decreased,” issued April 15, “highlights affordability and readiness challenges, all of which are known to the F-35 enterprise,” the JPO said in a press statement. It also said the report accurately notes “key program affordability and sustainment progress,” including good news on sustainability.

“We are aggressively executing near-term initiatives and long-term strategies to drive down cost and maximize availability and mission capability across the F-35 fleet,” the JPO said in a statement. “The reality is that actual aircraft Cost Per Tail Per Year and Cost Per Flight Hour continue to decrease.”

The program “achieved a 34% improvement in DoD F-35 Cost per Tail per Year (CPTPY) between 2014-22 ($9.4M to $6.2M) and a 61% improvement in DoD F-35 Cost per Flying Hour (CPFH) between 2014-22 ($86.8K to $33.6K)” all in constant year 2012 dollars, the JPO said.

“Despite economic and supply chain headwinds, we are continuing to inject affordability into this program,” it added.

While the GAO accurately notes overall program cost increases, those are due to “an extended F-35 service life and requirements growth.” Between 2018 and 2023, “the F-35’s estimated lifecycle end date [was] extended from 2077 to 2088,” and that 11-year increase in operations and continuation of the logistics enterprise drove increases referenced by GAO. The F-35 program is required to calculate comprehensive overall costs from spare parts to fuel to organic maintenance hours over a 52-year period.

“The F-35 JPO remains an open and committed partner to the GAO’s oversight mission. We will continue our productive relationship with auditing and accountability stakeholders as we work together to maximize F-35 affordability and readiness,” a JPO spokesperson said.

The key hangup on the F-35 are delays in getting the Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) hardware and software tested and approved for fleet use. While testing is underway, newly-built F-35s are being sent directly into storage.

Testifying before the tactical aviation panel of the House Armed Services Committee April 16, F-35 Program Executive Officer Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt declined to say how many F-35s are now in storage, or where they are, not wanting to “advertise” this information to adversaries.

But he acknowledged the TR-3 has “taken too long to deliver” and said his Software Architecture Independent Review Team estimates it will be August or September before F-35 deliveries can resume, and when this happens, it will likely be with a “truncated” version of the TR-3 software. The TR-3 delays are due to an overall problem with concurrency: trying to develop, test, and operate the jet all at once, he said.

“We … find ourselves using software to overcome hardware design maturity challenges,” Schmidt said in an opening statement submitted for the record at the hearing.

“The Software Independent Review Team’s initial conclusion is that we have a solid software architecture, but until the underlying hardware is fully mature, the F-35 Program will continue to struggle with software integration efficiency.”

However, Schmidt also said in the same opening statement that the long-overdue declaration of Milestone C and full-rate production, announced last month, “gives credence to the acquisition maturity taking place within the F-35 Enterprise.”

With Milestone C “behind us,” the program is now focused on an “unrelenting push to modernize this platform for the future and drive sustainment excellence throughout the fleet. TR-3, a Reimagined Block 4, propulsion modernization, and the upgrades that will follow, depend on the work we must execute today.”

Schmidt did not elaborate on what a “reimagined” Block 4 upgrade means, and the JPO was not immediately able to explain that term. However, he reiterated that a “truncated” TR-3 may be approved in order to get jet deliveries moving again and provide F-35 capability to the users.

The Block 4 upgrade comprises some 80 changes to the F-35, a figure that has nearly doubled in the last few years as the design has had to be adapted to a toughening threat.

For First Time Since 2022, Austin Talks to China’s Defense Minister

April 16, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III conducted virtual talks on April 16 with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Dong Jun, Beijing’s Minister of Defense, marking the first direct talk between defense chiefs of the two nations in close to two years.

In a readout, the Pentagon said Austin stressed freedom of navigation in the air and at sea, as Chinese warplanes and ships have intercepted U.S. and allied aircraft, continuously harassed Philippine vessels, and nearly collided with a U.S. destroyer in the past year.

The call signals more open military communication channels between the two nations, an imperative stemming from talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden in November. The Austin-Dong conversation follows a phone call between Biden and Xi earlier this month. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. talked to his counterpart in December.

The teleconference represents Austin’s first conversation with Dong, who assumed the role of China’s defense minister in December. Austin last talked to a Chinese defense minister in 2022, a post then held by Wei Fenghe.

Beijing put high Philippine level talks on ice after a visit to Taiwan by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in August 2022. The trip drew condemnation from China, which asserts the democratic, self-governing island is a breakaway province. Chinese later claimed U.S. sanctions against former defense minister Li Shangfu prevented high-level talks, though the Biden administration said that was not a restriction imposed by Washington.

Biden reiterated a desire for more dialogue during a recent phone call with Xis and highlighted the importance of talks with China to mitigate any “misunderstandings or miscalculations” during a joint conference with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.

During the video call, Austin talked about the importance of respect for high seas freedom of navigation guaranteed under international law, especially in the South China Sea.”

“The Secretary also reiterated that the United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate—safely and responsibly—wherever international law allows,” the Pentagon said.

Military tensions escalated between the two nations in early 2023 when a Chinese surveillance balloon breached continental United States airspace without prior warning. After a week of heightened tensions, the balloon was downed. Beijing rebuffed Austin’s attempt to engage in dialogue with his Chinese counterpart, asserting that the balloon was not a spying platform.

Last year also witnessed incidents involving Chinese fighter jets executing aggressive maneuvers near American aircraft, including one Chinese fighter within 10 feet of a B-52 bomber in the South China Sea. The Pentagon’s annual China report revealed there have been 180 instances of “coercive and risky behavior” between the fall of 2021 and fall of 2023, more than all of the previous decade combined.

The South China Sea remains a hotly contested region. China claims expansive sovereignty over almost the entire area, including territory claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. U.S. forces, meanwhile, continue to operate in the region, even as the Pentagon has noted an uptick in unsafe and unprofessional incidents by Chinese ships.

Washington has ramped up its military presence in the region in recent years, featuring the B-52 bomber in an ongoing series of joint aerial exercises with Philippine fighter jets. This prompted Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army to condemn the bomber patrol, accusing the Philippines of collaborating with outside countries “to stir up trouble.” The U.S. Navy also continues maritime patrols alongside the Philippine Navy in the waters of the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Pentagon said that the two defense ministers discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea, which the U.S. wants to more effectively sanction.

Allvin: USAF Sticking to 100 B-21s as It Considers Something New

April 16, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force isn’t looking to buy more than 100 B-21s because it may come up with something better by the time all those aircraft are built, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 16.

While the B-21 “is the future of our bomber force,” Allvin told the SASC that fresher, more effective technology may appear before the planned B-21 production run is complete, making the Air Force hesitant to commit to any more just yet.

One hundred B-21s “is the program of record,” Allvin said under questioning from Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). Northrop Grumman is the B-21 prime contractor.

“I think we’re not going to reach that number until probably the mid-2030s and beyond,” he said. “I think there are other technological advancements that we would see to be able to augment that and have a better mix … before we commit to that as being the platform” that will serve as the backbone of the future bomber force “beyond that.”

The original, 2015 requirement for the B-21 was 80-100 airframes, and it was upgraded to “at least 100” in more recent years. Heads of Global Strike Command and various think tanks have voiced a requirement for as many as 225-250 B-21s, but the Air Force has stuck to 100, as part of a fleet that also includes 75 B-52s and 45 B-1Bs until the early 2030s. The Air Force’s stated goal has been to neck down to just the B-21 and the B-52 as its bomber force.

Allvin did not elaborate on what other technologies the Air Force is considering to “augment” the B-21 force.

His comment that the full B-21 production run of 100 will not be achieved until the mid-to-late 2030s underscores that the bomber won’t be built at a very aggressive rate, suggesting an annual production of less than 10 airframes per year. Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante recently said that the B-21’s production rate was deliberately set at a low level to protect it from budget cuts.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, also testifying before the SASC, said the largely secret B-21 is “moving forward.”

“We’re pretty happy with the progress,” Kendall said. “I’m always very careful about saying positive things about programs and development … they all have risk.

But Kendall did express cautious optimism.

The “B-21 has been performing close to the original schedule and costs and delivering capability,” he said. “It’s in testing. We just had the milestone C approval to enter low-rate production.”

That approval was given by LaPlante in December after the B-21 made its first flight in November of 2023. The Air Force has subsequently acknowledged only one further test flight, although more are likely to have been flown. Northrop officials have said that once the airplane flew the first time, a high-frequency flight test schedule would ensue.

In announcing the low-rate production schedule, LaPlante said through a spokesperson that “one of the key attributes of this program has been designing for production from the start—and at scale—to provide a credible deterrent … if you don’t produce and field to warfighters at scale, the capability doesn’t really matter.”

The Pentagon did not specify any of the terms of Northrop’s B-21 production contract, citing classification. To date, the Air Force has still not even disclosed whether the bomber has two or four engines.

Two years ago, Kendall voiced the idea of developing an uncrewed adjunct to the B-21 in the conventional deep strike/nuclear mission, but later shelved that idea as being “not cost-effective.” However, the B-21 has been characterized from its inception as being part of a “family of long-range strike systems” acknowledged to include some kind of flying armed or electronic warfare escorts communications relay aircraft, or both.