Budget Predictions: ACE Gets Big Boost in ’23; Large Uncrewed Aircraft Fleets Needed

March 16, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is proposing a large budget investment in pre-positioned equipment to lay the groundwork for its agile combat employment concept, which calls for USAF forces to be widely dispersed and frequently moving to complicate enemy targeting, Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach reported.

He also forecast a major investment in uncrewed and “attritable” aircraft and decoys, both to bolster USAF capacity and to present an enemy with a large number of must-shoot targets that would rapidly draw down enemy magazines; and pitched for cargo UAVs to provide logistics support to far-flung ACE operating locations.

“There’s quite a bit of money in the [fiscal year] ’23 budget, when we finally get to start pre-positioning equipment, and parts, supplies, food and water, fuel, those kind of things,” Wilsbach said during a March 14 Mitchell Institute webcast. This will alleviate an excessive demand on airlift, he said, because “if you pre-position those things, at least initially, [those are] places that you don’t have to have airlift going in, immediately supplying parts and supplies, etc. So, we’re going to have very robust pre-positioning at numerous locations around the theater.”

The ACE concept of employment was published in December and tells wing commanders how to “train to it every day” and how the concept will be implemented in PACAF and U.S. Air Forces Europe; and “what the expectations will be,” he said. “That document has been instrumental in allowing everybody to get ready and be able to win when you get there.”

In the recent Cope North exercise out of Guam, ACE concepts were employed at 10 different operating locations, incorporating several countries, he said. The exercise “moved those assets around … on a daily basis,” and they were commanded and controlled at the same time.

Japan and Australia are both keenly interested in developing their own compatible versions of ACE, he said, “particularly the Japanese, who are really trying to expand their envelope and ACE … on mainland Japan. So that’s really exciting for us, because we intend to do ACE with them, if we ever have to.” Australia is doing similar things, and is a “great partner” in the concept.

The two enabling concepts for ACE are logistics and command and control, he said, because of the “contested environment.”

There won’t be enough C-17s to go around to service all the operating locations, he said, meaning C-130s will carry a greater share of the burden. That makes sense because exercises so far have found that most of the airlift required is to carry small, line-replaceable unit parts and other objects the size of a jet engine or smaller.

“If we’re relying on the C-17 fleet to do this, we’ll run out of C-17s very quickly,” he said, especially since the strategic transports will probably be needed for noncombatant evacuation operations and to move forces into the theater. There aren’t enough C-17s even when the C-17s of allies are added to the mix.

“And you would waste the capability because, like I said, often it’s just a line replaceable unit that has to go out to an island somewhere, and you don’t need a whole C-17 to take a piece that big. So, C-130s will be a big factor in this.” A C-130 squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan, is “frequently [doing] ACE iterations, and … they participate in the exercises as well.”

Wilsbach said he’s been “advocating for a few years for something even smaller than a C-130” that could take a person or an engine or a few parts.

“Perhaps it might even be an unmanned vehicle … but have a lot of them,” he said.

The concept is similar to the C-47s of World War II, he explained.

“There were … thousands, maybe, of C-47s, and they were all over the Pacific. And they weren’t fast, but they can carry a lot, and they tackled the logistics problem of the Pacific by having a lot of tails to … move equipment.” Although “it got there at 120, maybe 150 knots … it worked. We could have something like that for ACE, where you don’t have to have it going 500 knots,” but the logistics effort wouldn’t “eat a lot of tail numbers to be able to get the small bits of equipment and pieces to the various spots that we intend to deploy from.”

The flip side of the ACE coin is communications, Wilsbach said, calling it “pretty difficult to do” and fragile because lines of communication can be cut.

“What I’ve been asking for—and what we’re working on and approving—is a meshed, rather than network,” model, he said. He made the analogy to the human brain, which, if injured, “figures it out and finds different paths” to move messages and information around, and heal itself.

“It just happens,” he said, and with artificial intelligence and machine learning, the same will be true of the communications system the Air Force is now building for ACE.

“We want it to be self-healing so that operators aren’t working the comm gear, they’re operating and [figuring] out how to create airpower effects and executing those airpower effects, not switching frequencies and figuring out where the comm could go through.”

Wilsbach said that “if you tackle those two things—logistics and communications—ACE becomes a little more easy. It’ll still be difficult, but it’ll be easier than if we struggle with those two aspects.”

More UAVs Needed

Uncrewed aircraft will also be critical to the fight, Wilsbach said.

China’s ability to defend itself is “very robust” because of its elaborate anti-access/area denial air defense systems, he noted. The only way to “stress” those defenses is with large numbers of attritable aircraft, he said.

“What I would advocate for is to make the manned aircraft ‘exquisite’” in their capabilities “and the uninhabited aircraft … less exquisite, slightly more attritable, so that we can have more of them,” he said.

China would have to target decoys or unmanned aircraft coming toward it “because they’re not exactly sure” what those platforms are, he said, and “they’ll shoot weapons at [them] and use up their weapons.” Employing such swarmed, massed aircraft “could give you an advantage because [China would] use up their resources, shooting things that you don’t care that they shoot down. So that would be a capacity that I’m very interested in, as we go into the future.”

Not all of these unmanned aircraft should be stealthy, he said; otherwise, China would not see them and use up weapons against them.

“You give them a lot more targets to defend against,” he said. The Chinese would ignore these aircraft at their peril, because they would be equipped with sensors and weapons that could penetrate and destroy Chinese assets.

“All of these assets will have some kind of capability, whether it be a sensor … weapon truck, jammer … and they should swarm as well, so they should talk to one another and collaborate not only amongst themselves, but also with the manned platform that they’re supporting,” Wilsbach said. All this will present China with “many more dilemmas than they can handle at any given time. And what we’ve seen in exercises is, when you amass the effects, and we amass the number of weapons that are going after a particular target, they’ll be able to shoot down some—because as I’ve said, they have really good defenses—but they won’t be able to shoot them all down. And it’s the weapon that creates the final effect that you’re looking for that counts.”

Somalia Drawdown Has Been Ineffective, ‘Puts Troops at Greater Risk,’ AFRICOM Boss Says

March 15, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

It’s been more than 15 months since then-President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to withdraw the majority of its troops from Somalia. Since then, service members have had to “commute to work,” flying in from places such as Kenya and Djibouti to help train Somali forces and conduct operations against al-Shabab, the terrorist group that is part of al-Qaeda.

That setup, the head of U.S. Africa Command told lawmakers March 15, isn’t working.

“Our periodic engagement, also referred to as commuting to work, has caused new challenges and risks for our troops,” Army Gen. Stephen J. Townsend told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “My assessment is that it is not effective; it’s not efficient; and it puts our troops at greater risk.”

Townsend has expressed dissatisfaction with the situation before. In April 2021, he told the SASC that “our understanding of what is happening in Somalia is less now than when we were there on the ground physically located with our partners.” But Townsend also said at the time that “we’re working to make this new mode of operation work.”

In his written testimony this year, Townsend warned that “Somalia’s slow but continued steps towards stability stalled over the past year.”

At the same time, Townsend also called al-Shabab al-Qaeda’s “largest and wealthiest global affiliate” and Africa’s greatest threat to U.S. people and interests in the region and to the U.S. homeland.

With a reduced presence—less than 100 troops are still on the ground—the counterterrorism mission to combat al-Shabab has struggled, Townsend said.

“We are marching in place at best. We may be backsliding,” Townsend said. “I just think that what we’re doing is not providing sufficient pressure, and the best we can do is maintain a secure area around the bases that we return to when we really can’t get at the al-Shabab problems.”

Asked by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) whether he had asked his chain of command to restore the U.S. presence in Somalia to combat al-Shabab, Townsend declined to say but offered a hint.

“Respectfully, Senator, I have submitted advice to my chain of command, and my chain of command is still considering that advice,” Townsend said. “And I’d like to give them space to make that decision.”

Townsend has led AFRICOM for more than two-and-a-half years now, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) noted in his opening statement that he will likely leave the post in the coming months—no AFRICOM commander has served for more than three-and-a-half years.

While al-Shabab represents a growing threat inside the continent, Russian mercenaries are an outside factor that continue to concern Townsend and lawmakers.

So-called private military companies such as the Wagner Group are “a malign influence,” Townsend said. “They don’t follow anybody’s rules. They do what they want. They buttress dictators. They do gross violations of human rights. I think it’s bad for Africa’s security and prosperity in the future.”

Alarm over the use of such groups in the region has exploded in recent months—officials commonly believe they are connected to the Kremlin and are used strategically to leverage Russia’s larger interests in Africa.

Noting these assessments, Townsend said members of the Wagner Group “essentially run the Central African Republic” and have recently arrived in Mali in West Africa. They also are deployed in Libya and Sudan, where they extract natural resources and disrupt partnerships.

Their presence presents a number of challenges to American efforts in Africa, Townsend added.

“First, for example, overflight permissions—so with a continent as vast as Africa, we absolutely depend on air movement for everything,” Townsend said. “And when we see Wagner move in, they impose overflight restrictions, either through the government withdrawing permissions for overflight, or in the case of Libya, Wagner importing sophisticated advanced surface-to-air missile systems to protect their activities there but also deny the airspace.

“… Secondly, usurping partnerships. So as we’ve seen happen just now in Mali. The Malian government has asked the French forces to depart and instead have invited in this Russian [private military company]. And I think that is disturbing. It’s impacting our partnership with that same government as well. And I think that’s not good for Mali’s future.”

When asked what AFRICOM is doing to counter the influence of these mercenary groups, Townsend said his command has conducted information operations, “shining a spotlight” on their actions, while also counseling allies and partners not to allow such groups within their borders.

Ultimately, however, Townsend expressed optimism that such groups would be less impactful in the long run.

“An example … is in Libya, where they have worn out their welcome there. And the Libyans, even the Libyans who the Russians supported in the Civil War, now want them to depart,” Townsend said. “So, actually, I think that they’re probably their own worst enemy.”

U.S. Troop Presence on NATO’s Eastern Flank Could Expand Amid Fears of Reprisal

March 15, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

NATO defense ministers will meet in Brussels, Belgium, March 16 with leaders from Finland, Sweden, and Ukraine after Russian missiles struck some 10 miles from NATO’s border March 13. Amid concerns that Russia could target NATO’s eastern flank countries militarily for providing defense assistance to Ukraine, the defense ministers are expected to discuss expanding NATO troops’ medium- and long-term presence on the eastern flank; and new ways to help Ukraine.

“There are additional questions on the table about what type of posture the alliance should take going forward,” U.S. permanent representative to NATO, Ambassador Julianne Smith, told reporters March 15.

“Every member of this alliance right now is trying to think about what more it can do,” she said. However, she added: “Our interest is not escalating this conflict right now.”

DOD has already shot down a deal in which Poland would have given 24 MiG-29s to the U.S. for onward transfer to Ukraine.

A defense official told Air Force Magazine that the plan of flying the aircraft from Ramstein Air Base, Germany—a U.S. and NATO base and headquarters of NATO Air Command—would have made it “impossible” to claim that NATO was not involved in the conflict.

“It depends on how it’s done,” the official said of the possibility of an aircraft transfer in the future. “Lots of people are giving weapons to Ukraine, but they’re not getting the green light from NATO to do it.”

Smith said the “mechanics” of moving the Polish fighter jets into Ukraine, such as pilots and missiles, made the Polish plan “untenable,” but she left the door open for future bilateral transfers of aircraft to Ukraine. In the failed Polish deal, the U.S. had discussed backfilling Poland’s air defense deficit with F-16s. A Pentagon official told Air Force Magazine there is no active consideration of backfill options.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby likewise told Air Force Magazine that DOD is not opposed to transfer of aircraft to Ukraine.

“If another nation decides to transfer aircraft, that is a sovereign decision we would respect,” he said via email.

The U.S. and NATO have repeatedly rejected calls by President Volodymyr Zelensky to establish a no-fly zone, stating that such a move would be escalatory. In an address to the Canadian parliament March 15, Zelensky again called for a no-fly zone. He is set to address the U.S. Congress virtually at 9 a.m. March 16.

Smith reiterated the U.S. opposition to a no-fly zone as escalatory ahead of the NATO defense ministerial.

President Joe Biden, however, signed a new $13.6 billion aid package to Ukraine March 15, just days after a defense package approved March 12 worth $200 million. Not counting the new money from Congress, during his presidency Biden has authorized $1.2 billion in assistance to Ukraine and $550 million in the past two weeks.

Eastern Flank Assistance to Ukraine and Potential for Russian Blowback

Before Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III departed for Brussels on March 15, a senior defense official describing efforts to deliver new assistance to Ukraine told Air Force Magazine that DOD is trying to “get them the systems that they’re good at using,” including Turkish drones, surface-to-air missile systems, man-portable air defense systems, and Javelin anti-tank missiles.

After meeting with defense ministers, Austin is slated to visit NATO eastern flank allies Slovakia and Bulgaria.

A defense official from Romania, one of America’s staunchest NATO eastern flank allies, told Air Force Magazine that the Black Sea country expects blowback from Russia for helping to arm Ukraine, making NATO’s eastern flank defenses ever more important.

“We need to act, not to react, and we need to do something that will assure that Article 5 can realistically be put in place,” the official said, referring to the North Atlantic Treaty’s provision for mutual defense. “It’s easy to say that everybody agrees with Article 5, but if you don’t have the resources, Putin will find out that is bluffing, and he will play accordingly.”

Romania was pleasantly surprised by the unified NATO response with troops sent to the eastern flank before and after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

“That’s a credible deterrence. It means safety and also increases resilience,” the Romanian defense official said.

“The U.S. reacted very well on the air support,” the official added, citing the presence of eight F-16s at Fetesti Air Base and the recent deployment of two F-35s from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, all part of a NATO enhanced air policing mission. The Romanian official believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has designs for Russian forces to remain in Ukraine long-term. Romania shares a mountainous northern border with Ukraine south of Lviv and a marshy land border along the Black Sea, near Odessa.

“Do you expect in one month to have everything cleared up and to go? That is not real,” the official said of Russia’s troop presence in Ukraine. “He’s not there to leave.”

As one of the countries providing arms to Ukraine in the form of hundreds of tons of ammunition, Romania believes it could be a future target.

On March 12, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that convoys of defense assistance are legitimate military targets.

Romania’s Air Force consists of American-made F-16s and refurbished Soviet-era MiG-21s modified by Elbeit Systems to NATO standard avionics, which prevents Romania from possibly giving such aircraft to Ukraine. Romania’s air defense systems likewise include a Patriot missile battery and HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) multiple-launch rocket systems, neither of which are used by Ukraine.

Even if Romania could send aircraft, the official believed that such a transfer is a red line that requires NATO approval.

“To provide fighter airplanes to a country that is in war needs to have a NATO approval,” the official said. “You cannot do [that bilaterally] as a country because if you are involved, you involve NATO.”

For now, Romania is safe. But the country still calls for a larger and enduring U.S. troop presence, an issue that will be discussed at the NATO ministerial.

“I think one of the reasons we’re having ministers meet here in Brussels tomorrow is to talk about other steps that collectively we can take to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank,” said Smith, “and whether or not we need to map out in more detail a medium and longer-term plan. So, stay tuned on that front.”

The U.S. defense official told Air Force Magazine the NATO talks may lead to an expanded permanent U.S. presence on the eastern flank.

“The Poles and Romanians are likely to get what they’ve been looking for for a long time, which is some kind of enduring U.S. presence,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force is continuing to rotate aircraft in, around, and through NATO partner nations and airspace.

“We move them around on a regular basis. We are doing ACE essentially,” the official said, referring to the agile combat employment doctrine.

“There’s a certain degree of strategic predictability and tactical unpredictability. The aircraft can be in Spangdahlem today, or they could be in the Baltics tomorrow,” the official added. “If we got into a fight with the Russians, we can be very unpredictable, where these things go and how they operate.”

New Missile Tracking Satellites Could Be in Orbit by 2025

March 15, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Defense Department could have higher-resolution, global missile warning and tracking in place as soon as 2025.

Congress seeded “Tranche 1” of the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer of its planned multi-use satellite constellation in the newly passed fiscal 2022 spending bill. The extra $550 million Congress gave SDA, above what the Pentagon asked for, in fiscal 2022 means the Tracking Layer could go live in early 2025 instead of in 2026.

SDA awarded contracts to SpaceX and L3Harris Technologies in October 2021 to build the first generation of Tracking Layer satellites, which SDA refers to as “Tranche 0.” In a call with reporters March 15, an official said the $550 million is only the beginning of funding Tranche 1, estimating that the first batch of 28 satellites in Tranche 1 of the Tracking Layer will total $2.5 billion. The remainder would have to come from future budgets.

Similar to SDA’s Transport Layer of satellites for moving data around, batches of new satellites would also refresh the Tracking Layer every two years. Each Tracking Layer satellite should last four or five years.

Being situated in low Earth orbit will give the Tracking Layer satellites an advantage over DOD’s current infrared satellites orbiting higher up, an official said, in part because of proximity. With more satellites, the constellation will also be more resilient.

The SDA relocates in fiscal 2022 from its place in the DOD’s organizational chart within the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering to become part of the Space Force. It awarded contracts for the 126 satellites that will make up “Tranche 1” of the Transport Layer in February, dividing up the work between Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and York Space Systems.

Facing Future Threats, Time for Air Force to Stockpile Munitions is Now, Experts Say

March 15, 2022 | By Nick Adde

Like their colleagues throughout the Air Force, the service’s top munitions experts hail the potential of cutting-edge aircraft such as the F-35 Lightning II and B-21 Raider. But without enough of the right kind of munitions, they believe, these and other platforms could fall short of their potential when most needed.

“We lack a deep bench of stores for them when it comes to key weapons,” retired Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem told a March 3 audience during a panel discussion at the AFA Warfare Symposium.

Stutzreim, who moderated the discussion, is director of research at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He added that the munitions industrial complex is not large enough to surge production of necessary munitions when crises would demand it.

“This all adds up to the conclusion that it’s time to have a concerted focus on munitions,” Stutzriem said, as he introduced the panel, including John Corley of the Air Force Research Laboratory; and the retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula and retired Col. Mark Gunzinger of the Mitchell Institute.

Gunzinger, the institute’s director of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments, alluded to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. U.S. and allied forces would have to go on the offensive “within hours—not wait weeks” to build up sufficient force structure before beginning a campaign, he said.

“That means airpower will be the predominant means to rapidly respond from inside and outside the theater, to strike those thousands of targets in hundreds of hours, to blunt an invasion,” Gunzinger said.

Further, Gunzinger described the stockpile of long- and short-range precision-guided munitions (PGMs) as “unbalanced,” thus reducing the number of targets that can be hit.

Deptula, the institute’s dean, added, “the Air Force needs to … move out smartly to develop a new generation of mid-range standing PGMs that cost less than long-range weapons, to help develop the PGM inventory.”

These new weapons should be designed for low observability, Deptula said, and carry other features designed to penetrate advanced integrated air defense systems.

“The threat of pure conflict today is real,” Corley said.

While Operation Desert Storm involved some 45,000 aim points, a conflict with China or Russia could entail 100,000 or more, Corley said.

“Do we have the number of weapons on hand to deal with [that] magnitude of threat? No, we don’t have the capacity to … generate that number of weapons in a matter of weeks. So we need to start stockpiling more munitions with the capabilities that we desire,” Corley said, adding that digital engineering would help meet the demand quickly and at a realistic price.

Gunzinger closed his remarks with a warning.

“We can have the best fifth- and sixth-gen Air Force in the world. We can have the largest bomber force in the world, and we can have NGADs [Next Generation Air Dominance fighters] out of our ears,” Gunzinger said. “If they don’t have weapons, that does not translate into combat power. And Gen. Deptula is exactly right. The time to buy these weapons is now.”

Here’s How Airmen Are Training to Survive in the Arctic

March 15, 2022 | By Amy Hudson

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska—The temperature hovered in the mid-teens, and the skies were crystal blue here March 14 as members of the Alaska Air National Guard’s 211th Rescue Squadron prepared for a seven-hour round-trip flight north, well into the Arctic Circle. The mission, part of the ongoing biannual Arctic Edge exercise, was to drop an Arctic Sustainment Package, consisting of Guardian Angel Airmen and a pallet of survival gear, onto an ice pack 200 miles off the northern coast of Alaska where they would set up camp.

Despite the near-perfect conditions on the ground, the weather can change in an instant in the Arctic, and crews know they must be prepared for anything.

“Weather is great here, but it doesn’t look great up north,” said Capt. Chris McKnight, the mission’s HC-130J pilot. “It’s [going to be] white on white. It’s like flying in a golf ball.”

The temperature also will plummet. Depending on the time of year, it could drop as low as minus 60 degrees in Alaska. When the rear ramp opens on this mission, McKnight will be flying 130 knots—about 150 miles per hour—and the temperature will be at least minus 20 degrees, likely colder. That kind of freezing wind is enough to shock anyone’s system, but Capt. Miles Brodsky, a combat rescue officer with the Alaska ANG’s 212th Rescue Squadron and the flight commander for the mission, said, “It’s one of the most amazing experiences ever.”

But training is key to survival.

“People talk about flow state, or like, hyper-focused,” Brodsky told Air Force Magazine during an interview on base before the flight. “It’s like everything we train for coming up to that one moment. It’s almost like everything goes in slow motion, and you can see every step forward, 10 steps at a time. It is the ultimate ‘being in the moment,’ I would say, because you’re just completely focused on executing this mission properly and getting out of the plane.”

The 212th has a unique mission. It is the only unit in the entire Department of Defense with an Arctic Sustainment Package capability—Canada is the only other country in the world with the capability, said Lt. Col. John Romspert, commander of the 212th RQS. Created in 2010 after the Northwest Passage and Polar Ice Cap started melting, making room for more Arctic exploration, tourism, and nation building, the baseline Arctic Sustainment Package is capable of treating 23 people in 96 hours in the harshest of conditions.

It includes one combat rescue officer, a survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) specialist, and four pararescue jumpers. They jump with up to five modular pallets of survival gear, including everything from vehicles to tents.

The SERE specialist will help set up the camp and keep an eye out for rapidly changing environmental conditions as the PJs treat any survivors on the ground and the combat rescue officer focuses on resupply and getting everyone safely home, Romspert said.

“What a lot of people who don’t operate in the Arctic realize is how dynamic it is,” he said. “It could be clear blue when you jump in, and 45 minutes later, you’re in a storm that lasts for 10 days at minus 60 degrees. So, just because you got in, doesn’t mean you’re going to get out right away. It takes a team effort and constant coordination to make sure that the operation is just running smoothly.”

In the Arctic, the weather is the biggest adversary, and Airmen operating in these conditions need to understand how to control their own body temperature. Too many layers, and you might start sweating, and that could freeze later and lead to hypothermia. Not enough layers, and again, hypothermia could set in.

“We are constantly managing our own bodies in the situation, our own layers, just to exist in the environment,” Brodsky said. “We always have to be thinking ahead because if we’re staying in the evening, or a couple of nights, the environment becomes a huge factor … It’s just a constant challenge … that’s why we train a lot.”

Arctic Edge, which runs through March 17, is a U.S Northern Command-scheduled exercise with some 1,000 U.S. and Canadian forces participating. First held in 2018, it takes place every two years, with the goal of providing realistic training throughout Alaska. It is the largest joint exercise in Alaska this year and one of several occurring simultaneously, including the National Guard’s Arctic Eagle/Patriot, the U.S. Army’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Capability exercise, and the U.S. Navy’s ICE-X.

“Arctic operations and exercises such as Arctic Edge demonstrate the capabilities utilized to defend our homeland and our interests,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm, commander of Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command, Alaskan Command, and 11th Air Force. “To deter day-to-day, de-escalate in crisis, and if required, defeat in conflict, we must be able to operate and thrive in the Arctic.”

Watch, Read: Warfighter Training and Readiness in the Air and Space Forces

March 14, 2022

Retired Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, executive vice president of the Air Force Association, hosts Brig. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton, commander of the Space Force’s Space Training and Readiness Command; and Lt. Gen. Marshall B. “Brad” Webb, commander of Air Education and Training Command in a discussion of “Warfighter Training and Readiness” at the AFA Warfare Symposium on March 4, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg: Well, on behalf of the Air Force Association, good morning and welcome back to this discussion of Warfighter Training and Readiness. We’ve talked a lot about technology and equipping the future fight. Now we’re turning our attention to the most important weapon system in the arsenal: people. Training and preparing war fighters to be masters of the war-fighting domain is absolutely pivotal. If we’re going to take America’s best and brightest, and put them directly into harm’s way, then we need to be absolutely sure we’re investing in the right resources to make them successful. That’s especially important today as we prepare to engage peer threats in the contested realms of air, space, and cyber.

I’m delighted to be joined by Lt. Gen. Brad Webb, commander, Air Education and Training Command. And joining him is Brig. Gen. Shawn Bratton, commander of the newly formed Space Training and Readiness Command, STARCOM. Sirs, I appreciate it, and thank you for being with us today. So I’d like to begin with your initial thoughts and perspectives on your commands’ role in events playing out on the global stage. In keeping with our theme, ‘Air and Space Power: Indispensable to Deter, Fight and Win,’ some are perhaps wondering why America has an Air Force and perhaps a Space Force. Sir, thoughts? Gen. Webb.

Lt. Gen. Marshall B. “Brad” Webb: Thanks, Doug. And thanks for having us here. Kind of be the close-out session, before we get on to the other festivities. Let me just say—and I will answer the question—but I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge right off the bat, today: 20th anniversary of Operation Anaconda. The last Medal of Honor recipient, John Chapman—‘Chappie’—gave his life in defense upon that mountain. It’s germane, obviously, because it’s 20 years ago, and for some of us in the room, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. But the other thing is, it’s germane to the topic we’re going to talk about, which is Airmen and Guardians and the importance of that weapons system.

So the question, ‘Why does America have an Air Force?’ If you listened to Gen. Brown’s comments yesterday—and actually, this has been an ongoing discussion that we’ve been grappling with in the senior leaders of the Air Force, and I really like where we’ve landed. If you ask a soldier, ‘Why do we have an Army?’ he’d say it’s to fight and win our nation’s wars. If you asked a sailor, it’s to project power abroad and protect sea lines of communication. And in the Air Force, sometimes we’d roll back into the five core missions of the Air Force—air superiority, rapid global mobility, etc. But why do we have an Air Force? And Gen. Brown was loud and clear on it yesterday. It’s to defend the homeland, project our power abroad, support the joint force, and he’s added this corollary—which I love and you would have heard it yesterday—‘all done on the bedrock of our foundations.’ And our foundations for the Air Force are readiness, infrastructure and people. Obviously, in the Air Force, Airmen, and Space Force, Guardians. And I think that’s really, really important. And that right there encapsulates grit. And how you do that, of course, becomes the core missions inside the Air Force. But right there I think is very germane, and Gen. Brown was really, really sharp on articulating that yesterday.

Raaberg: Thank you, sir. Governor, over to you for STARCOM.

Brig. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton: Hey, thanks. Thanks. It’s an honor to be up here. And for the folks in the room that there’s a pretty good crowd here for the last session at the end of the hallway on Day 2, so way to get your money’s worth out of AFA. Thanks for coming out to hear us.

I’ll tell you on the Space Force side, STARCOM is the newest of the new thing, right? If the Space Force, I think Gen. Brown or Gen. Raymond said, ‘is a toddler running around.’ We’re in our infancy for sure on the STARCOM side and couldn’t do it without our partners in AETC, among other places across the Air Force. So I see a lot of AETC patches out here. Thanks to you guys for helping us figure this out.

The STARCOM mission is pretty straightforward: prepare every Guardian for competition and conflict. And we see, you know, we see a great example of that going on in the world right now. What we ask ourselves every day is, ‘What are we doing inside of STAR Command to ensure those Guardians are ready to go when the combatant commanders need them?’ But whether it’s basic training, as we work through the transition, OTS, or all the way up to weapons school and advanced training activities, we owe the force, operational force, just the best training we can. So they’re ready when called upon, whether it’s in EUCOM, INDOPACOM, CENTCOM or in the space AOR in support of U.S. Space Command. So that’s on our mind. Chiefs here with me, we think about it, and how do we develop those activities to train Guardians to be ready for competition and conflict is what we’re working through. And like I said, can’t do that without our partners in AETC. So, with that, happy to have a discussion.

Raaberg: Well, thank you, sir. So let’s go. Gen. Webb. I have a feeling you’ve been asked this question quite often from the top echelons of the Department of Defense all the way out in the field. So from a session to combat readiness, how well do you now feel you prepare Airmen to support a COCOM mission?

Webb: How do I feel about how we’re preparing Airmen?

Raaberg: How well you prepare them.

Webb: How will we prepare them?

Raaberg: How well?

Webb: OK. It’s ‘will’ and ‘well.’ You get both. Well, the other thing that you will have heard that I think is consistent with the themes, you heard from the secretary yesterday, and also the chief. And, you know, while the statement may be Agile Combat Employment or multicapable Airmen, this is about an agile mindset. And yeah Gen. Brown in his comments was actually remarking on, I guess, for instance of someone that was building a checklist to, you know, check off the box to become an Agile Combat Employment Airman or something like that. And then he said, ‘No. Throw that away. This is about a mindset.’ Now, I mean, I, you know, we could argue on the margins of whether capabilities need to be documented or not. But this is more about the mindset. A mindset that has understanding of mission-type orders. Mission command. ‘Being comfortable with being uncomfortable’ is really how I like to articulate it. And that’s a goal, of course, but it’s a mindset. And so uncertainty is going to be the coin of the realm in these future fights. And without, you know, developing into a long lecture, the bottom line is, you know, culturally in the Air Force, we like to talk about weapon systems. That is, culturally, what we are. But the asymmetric advantage in this great power competition, when we talk about China or we talk about Russia is, in my case, the Airmen. I think, you know, I won’t speak for Shawn, but it’s kind of the same case with Guardians in the Space Force. This is the asymmetric advantage, and part of that is getting outside the box and allowing our Airmen to be all that they can be. And I have any number of examples where I feel very confident that, within the United States Air Force, we’re well on that path.

Raaberg: Now, Gen. Bratton, you probably get asked the question a little differently, and that is obviously, with STARCOM, you know, being less than a year old and growing. To begin with, I imagine most people ask you, ‘Can you describe STARCOM for us?’

Bratton: Yeah, sure. No, thanks. We stood up just last August—August 23—last year and hit you know, our six-month birthday a couple weeks ago. So it’s been nonstop build, but the foundation of it existed in AETC, in Air Combat Command, in the squadrons that transferred over from the Air Force into STARCOM. AFOTEC, as well. So the broad mission at STARCOM is training and education just like AETC, so the AU, inclusive of the LeMay Center. So we do doctrine as well in STARCOM, similar to AETC, but we also pick up a little bit of the Warfare Center activities. And so the weapons school, the 328th out there making weapons officers falls under STAR Command, the Space Flag—Red Flag-like activities that you see across the Air Force—what I think of as advanced training, although probably not exactly the right label, but that falls under us, as well as the AFOTEC mission. So Gen. Sears in the AFOTEC team down there at Kirtland doing all the operational tests. We take that on, as well.

And tying all that together—especially the training and test missions—is really the range. And so range and aggressor units that came over from Air Combat Command, and then what we’re building out to be able to do training and test for orbital warfare, which is really the growth area as we respond to the adversary is the hard work ahead of us. We’re leveraging everything that AETC has done. We pull Guardians from Keesler, Goodfellow and the Vandenberg unit that’s actually part of the Space Force, as well as that fundamental training done it at OTS and BMT and AETC. I mean, those are our partners. But the mission is a little bit bigger in a sense of there’s more things, but a lot smaller in a sense of the scale that the Air Force has to generate and train to, you know, the size of the Space Force lets us do things in a much smaller scale.

Raaberg: If I stick with you, Gen. Bratton, and so how’s your roadmap coming along? How well?

Bratton: Yeah, pretty well. I mean, we’re certainly in a build phase. So it’s everything from, you know, a lot of facilities, a lot of civilian hiring going on. The unit that came over, you know, we’re through kind of the paperwork thrash of OCRs and all that. A lot of basing activities ahead of us. So there’s sort of the bureaucracy that’s demanded of any new organization occupies a lot of our time. But at the delta and squadron level, we’re really getting after what are the advanced training requirements.

And so, for example, you know, orbital warfare. The adversary’s got a lot of capability on orbit today, and they continue to demonstrate that—direct-ascent ASATs, rendezvous and proximity operations. We don’t live or, historically, we haven’t trained live against those things. We’ve done some sim activities. But we’re really starting to think through Guardians in training, before they show up at their operational squadron, really need to have a couple of those sorties under their belt for what do you do when an adversary spacecraft approaches you on orbit? What does hostile intent look like? What’s a hostile act in space? There’s a lot of policy that goes to that. But in the training environment, that just the basic TTPs for war fighting; we got to figure those out. We got to figure them out right now. And so we’re after that in the simulated environment, and I think we’re going to see some of that training move to the live environment.

Raaberg: So between both of you, starting with you, Gen. Webb, what are kind of some of the similarities and perhaps differences now that you see both commands formed up?

Webb: Yeah, so obviously, some very similar functions and Shawn’s kind of articulated some of the differences with Space Force and STARCOM. The charge that Gen. Goldfein and then Gen. Brown gave to me and is, you know, obviously, I got intent from Gen. Raymond as well, is still playing out. And so there’s some areas, there’s a lot for us that STARCOM is biting off and trying to really form from the ground up. We in AETC want to be in a position where we can be value-added and take those things that maybe aren’t first order pieces that Space Force wants to address, but that they’ll address—or not—down the road. They … can have the decision space to take that on later.

For instance, recruiting. Recruiting service, is we, AETC, is doing the recruiting service function for Space Force for the time being. And we’ll see down the road where Space Force wants to go with that. And, you know, a maybe it’s a little-known fact that when Air Force stood up, back in 1947, the Army recruited for the Air Force for about the first five to seven years before we stood it up. So we want to be in a position to do that with Space. And frankly, any other of the areas that Space Force would like us to take on so they can get after their first order pieces.

One other difference is, of course, is we have the 59th Medical Wing in AETC. They’re stationed there at Lackland, alongside BMT. I mentioned that only because it’s not—and it’s not an ‘only’—through the last two years of the pandemic, that that wing was game-changing in our ability to fight through. That’s a whole other story that I won’t necessarily go into. So there’s a little bit of nuances on the side that are different. The wheelhouse or the center of gravity is kind of similar, but there’s some little bit of differences there.

Raaberg: Gen. Bratton, but it’s gonna be the same questions, differences, similarities, but let’s start with the fact that the U.S. Space Force is a digital service.

Bratton: So we say that a lot. We’re still learning what it means, I think, in many ways. We looked to our partners in AETC, and they’re stepping out on this as, I think, as much as the Space Force is, with leveraging technology and digital aspects into the training environment. And so, you know, the chief and I were down at the 37th Training Wing seeing the BMT enterprise last week. A lot of discussion going on about their about AETC’s plan to introduce that, and I think we’ll benefit.

Again, a little bit it goes back to the scale. There’s some things that AETC is able to do, just because the scale is so large, that we’ll be able to just leverage and ride on their coattails a little bit. Conversely, there’s some things that we’ll be able to do because we’re really small that we can act as a pilot program for AETC to maybe watch and see how that goes. You know, we’re all up on the wearables right now for PT and trying to think through what that means for holistic health. I think that might be an area where the Air Force’ll watch us closely. Conversely, you know, we had a lot of talk about technology and BMT introduction of iPads, where AETC is going and where we want to go and leverage that as well. So the partnership will stay close, I think, for a long time. Certainly places like Keesler and Goodfellow, you know, across this sort of second Air Force enterprise. We have tight partnerships, and we’re not in a rush to kind of separate and do our own thing. I think there’s places where we will, for sure. But that’ll come in time, and we’ll do it smartly, both for the realities of cost, and then just there’s no need to rush into something when there’s nothing that’s broken right now. There’s things we want to do, absolutely. But I think we’ll stay pretty tightly coupled for a few years.

Raaberg: Thank you. Gen. Webb, so you’re dealing with the full spectrum, and not just from entry to the combat readiness, but rather from culture to really doctrine. So what does it really take to be an Airman?

Webb: It’s really back to my, I guess, second point that I made with you. And I’d just like to summarize that as being ‘comfortable with uncertainty.’ This is about the Airman that has an agile mindset. As a case in point, and I don’t know if I’m skipping ahead on some of the questions, but it’s germane. All of the Air Force was involved, you know, really deeply with the Afghan evacuee situation a few months ago. And AETC was as well. In fact, one of the bases that was identified to be one of the landing spots was Holloman Air Force Base. And, in fact, the general—the National Guard general, Gabrielli—was assigned out there in conjunction with the 49th Wing.

Anyway, Chief Thompson and I went out to visit them early in the days. And in two instances—I would share two instances with you, both of them female first lieutenants, by the way. We’re on the ground. We happened to be there when one of the evacuee planes landed from overseas there at Holloman and got to watch this process. There was a female lieutenant—actually not from AETC, she was from Seymour Johnson—her name was first—at the time, she may be a captain now—1st Lt. Whitney Longenecker. She was a personnelist assigned there at Seymour Johnson. And she’s running around just organizing chaos, frankly—of people that are coming off the plane, what lines they’re going to get into, where are they going to go for their various in-processing. And I’m looking at her, and I’m going, ‘Hey. Lt., have you ever deployed before?’ And she’s, ‘Oh, no, sir. This my first deployment.’ I mean, it kind of is it looks like a deployment, you know, in the sense of the chaos as there’s cranes literally building the tent city as we talk and scads of kids runnin’ around kicking soccer balls. I mean, it was chaotic. And she’s organizing this thing, and she’s taken to it. And this is what I’m talking about. ‘Is there a process for what you’re setting up?’ ‘No, sir. I just understand what needs to get done. And we’re doing the best with, we’ll try it. If this doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.’ That’s precisely what we’re talking about.

The other one was a first lieutenant—now she is a captain—Saleha Jabeen. She is the DoD’s only female imam in the Department of Defense. And I mean, we were there probably less than two weeks into this thing, and every one of the Afghan refugees oriented directly with her. And especially the women that were coming—and the children—that were coming off of the planes there from Afghanistan. And she became—I would say from Gen. Gabrielli’s perspective—the first she had the first seat with him on everything.

And in fact, she’s from Sheppard; she belonged in my formation. We started looking to, ‘Hey, she needs to redeploy for some other duties.’ And Gen. Gabrielli said, ‘We got to have her.’ And she stayed for the entire duration of this piece. And that, these, and she was kind of a little bit maybe she had taken more than just a narrow path of what maybe a [unintelligible] but it was very important. And she could see what is the right thing to do.

Raaberg: Sir, I think what you’re almost describing is almost a new ethos of an Airman—agile Airmen, and we’re gonna touch on agile Guardian. Just the previous panel, the Air Force reserve deputy, Maj. Gen. John Healy, described the new agile Airman loadmaster, delivering not only cargo but also babies and in real time, everything going on. So let’s talk about that ethos of a Guardian, because this is important, Gen. Bratton, and that is, how does STARCOM at the leading edge begin to mold that ethos through your training pipeline?

Bratton: I’ll tell you, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about this. And the foundations of the Space Force are in the Air Force. I, you know, was an Airman for 35 years, prior enlisted, I walked the parade field at Lackland and then through OTS. And so, you know, that certainly informs our thinking. You know, same is true for the chief, that same background went through Goodfellow as a 1N.

But we’re bringing in now the counterparts from the Army and Navy, so the interservice transfers—about 1,000 of them, including the civilians coming across this year—that’ll bring some different perspectives for us. You know, there’s been incredible space capability in the Army all along, and a lot of those folks are coming over. And so that will, I think, over time, it will lead us to diverge from the Air Force. Certainly, there’s a challenge that we’re working through on how do you—really on the training side—you know, how do you equip someone to operate in the space domain when they will never go to the space domain? You know, the flyers in the Air Force, look out the window, they see the air domain all around them. We can all stand on the ground and look up and see their aircraft. We can’t do that in the space domain, and so we have to present a training environment that enables Guardians to visualize, to understand, you know, the physics of the space domain and how movement and maneuver there is so very different than movement and maneuver on the sea, on land, in the air.

I think conveying those in the training environment, providing a range that lets them experiment and test and train and develop tactics, will be key for us. But that sort of visualization, understanding of it at the cognitive level of how to operate in a place that you will never go, you know, unless you’re fortunate enough to hitch a ride with SpaceX, if you’ve got the money, or, you know, take the astronaut route through NASA, which, you know, the Air Force has historically done. But that’s just a handful of folks who are ever going to actually get there. So it’s a big challenge. We’re thinking through it. How to best present that and then build that into the culture and identity of all Guardians.

Raaberg: Go ahead, sir.

Webb: Doug, can I, I’d like to circle back just a little bit on the, on this concept of the Airmen we need going forward. In the Air Force, what’s gotten traction in the last couple of years is the term ‘developing the Airmen we need—DAWN.’ And fundamental to that, and then I, you know, these, we run the risk of kind of becoming buzzword bingo sometimes with our words, and what does that really mean when we talk about, you know, certain phrases. And one of them is ‘foundational,’ you know, kind of stuff. And another one is ‘competencies.’ And, of course, in AETC, there’s this phraseology of foundational competencies that become really important when we talk about the Airmen we need going forward.

One of the advances that we’ve done with Gen. Brown is really slap the table on what we’re calling, ‘What are these competencies?’ And they really bucketize, I won’t, that’s a, it’s a laundry list — it’s 24 terms, I will go through that — but they’re bucketized very well, I think. When we talk about developing the Airmen we need, we’re talking about development of yourself, development of others, development of ideas and development of the organization. And if you kind of think about it in that terms, it really kind of adds to this agile mindset that I’m talking about this mission, multicapable Airmen. But it’s in those buckets of development that’s really going to be key with AETC going forward.

Raaberg: It’s really true. You know, the young Guardian and the young Airman are really the innovators. So we just got to equip them that way and train them to think that way even more, even though it comes naturally for them. So on that note, I’d like to get into your kind of your command mindset, especially as you see your commands setting the foundation for developing leaders of tomorrow. But at the same time, you’re developing readiness for today. So really, how do you, what’s changing from that perspective as you foundationally?

Webb: Well, the developmental competencies or the foundational competencies of development is really ground zero for us. The, you know, inside the AETC vision is developing exceptional Airmen of character—the foundation of our United States Air Force. It’s right there in the phraseology. So foundationally, you know, if you were to ask me this foundation, you know, what’s your role in AETC with respect to building that foundation, it’s right there. And so all of those categories of development from self to others to organization to ideas are fundamental with us going forward.

Raaberg: Gen. Bratton?

Bratton: Yeah, I think we’re trying to think through for the Guardians coming in, I mean, they’re very demanding and want access to just the both the best training, which we owe them, but also a variety. They’re nervous. We in the Space Force, to some extent, we put people into what we call a space power discipline, so like electronic warfare, orbital warfare, space battle management. There, when I talked to the lieutenants and the young Guardians, they’re concerned about being tracked into that for an entire career.

Now, in my career in the Air Force, I got to do all sorts of things. I cross-trained, I was an O-33, SO-17, I became a 13S space operator, I was prior enlisted radar maintenance. So I, you know, I had a ton of variety in my Air Force career, and I went back to training over and over as needed to support those decisions—both that the service needed from me and that I got to make. You know, going to weapons school, going to PME and residence. We’re thinking through something that the Air Force does on a large scale. How can we do that on a smaller scale and allow a lot of cross-training opportunities? … We have so few AFSCs today, I think it lets us be a little more nimble there.

And then these advanced training opportunities, and these things like Test Pilot School, Weapons School, Super Coders—which is a Space Force, kind of advanced coding school—SAS, I mean, these opportunities. So when you build a career, from the service point of view, I’m constantly making a better operator. More lethal in the space domain but also a lot of choice for the Guardian, that I would, we think may positively affect retention—reasons to stay—because you’re constantly given opportunities to cross-train, but also maintains a high level of interest. There’s always another thing to learn, another opportunity. And that’s true in PME, in training, in advanced training activities.

And so, I think, we’re small enough, we can build the construct. I don’t think there’s anything new there. Like I said, this is exactly my career that I had in the Air Force, and the chief has similar experiences where there’s always another thing to learn. And so we’re working through that now. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of just kind of the numbers on the personnel side of, you know, someone’s still gotta be on the console up at Thule manning the radar. And so we gotta do the operational mission but then be able to pull them out for training as much as we can over and over and over.

Raaberg: Generals, for the audience, I think it’s time for us to look into your Rolodex and see what’s on your speed dial or your telephone, because you must be talking to other air and space commanders out in the field, perhaps even the combatant commanders. So who do you talk to to help inform your command’s direction?

Webb: On my side, I’d say it’s principally the MAJCOM commanders. I wouldn’t say that we don’t talk to the COCOMs but, in a lot of ways, you know, the MAJCOM commanders—depending on who we’re talking about—are the component commanders themselves from an air perspective. There’s all kinds of areas that we delve into from, you know, which has kind of been one area, which is kind of wheelhouse for AETC, and has been for a number of years is how do you modernize modern learning methods from, you know, kind of 1970s-style to with technology today? That’s an area. But the bottom line—and the one that I won’t come off of in my realm, and which I think really resonates with our MAJCOM commanders—is quality.

You know, it’s very easy to get into a discussion on production. I mean, it is. This is a production engine at the end of the day in AETC. And it’s very easy to get sucked into the, you know, meet that number. And maybe it’s my background, I don’t know, but and it may sound cliche-ish, but job one is still quality. So it’s way more important to me if I’m going to stand in front of the secretary or the chief and say, ‘We didn’t make a number’ or ‘We have a crappy product,’ I’d way rather be in the position of, ‘We didn’t make that number, but here’s the feedback from the field. It’s a quality product.’ And that for me is is, as cliche-ridden as it may sound, is job one.

Raaberg: Thank you.

Bratton: Yeah, you know, we’re blessed to have a lot of help from the Air Force. And so the counterpart organizations for sure Gen. Webb, Gen. Tullos, Gen. Edmondson at 2nd Air Force, give us a lot of help. Gen. Sears and the AFOTEC team down at Kirtland, and then Gen. Cunningham and the Warfare Center are kind of the counterpart organizations on the Air Force. So spend a lot of time talking to all three of them. The test center folks at Edwards as well.

We’re talking to the other services, too, though. So TRADOC, Army Futures, little bit Army Recruiting Command to understand how do they do things. Chief’s headed out to talk to the Coast Guard. You know, scale-wise, they’re a little bit closer to us to understand how they do things, especially in the training pipeline in the kind of awarding of what we call an initial skills training or AFSC awarding schools, and see how they do those things so we can bring in some ideas from others, in addition to our teammates on the Air Force side.

So that for sure is the Rolodex. Lots of help from the operational side of the Space Force and SpOC with Gen. Whiting. And of course, if you know Gen. Burt, she is a force to be reckoned with and helps me every day with ideas and thoughts. And she’s been working this training business a long time, so I get a lot of help from her specifically. So that’s kind of the Rolodex of helpers.

And then I’d say in the build-out of the range, maybe our most significant activity is sort from scratch is the build-out of the, we call it the National Space Test and Training Complex—the NSTTC—sort of like the NTTR would be the equivalent out at Nellis. And as we think that through, and that is a lot of industry help coming in for that. And so we’re working with industry on ideas. How do we think about this? What can we do live? What makes sense to do digital and simulation with our industry partners?

Raaberg: Fellas, let’s take a step back now and talk about training, especially in an era of autonomy, artificial reality and breakthrough technologies. It seems to me, at least, to be getting pretty complicated, especially after a recruit puts on a uniform and has just learned how to march. Are you training to a certain concept? And then I’m gonna have a follow-up question that’s going to be more in the area of your thoughts about immersive experience or immersive training. Sir?

Webb: Yeah, so the good news on this is that while, you know, us here on the stage are at best digital immigrants, the people that are joining our services are natives. And so, a lot of this conceptually, we have to be paying attention to how this is being received and really being responsive to how Airmen—in my case—that are entering the service today think and how they learn. And it is in a continuous fashion. And so these immersive technologies are definitely important. I think, for instance, Wi-Fi, today, in the United States Air Force is, is a utility, just like electricity and running water are a utility. It’s easy to say. It’s expensive. So it’s a little bit harder to do, but fundamentally, this is a necessary item. And it’s very useful in continuing the process of being in a situation where you are a continual learner.

Now, we have we have a number of programs inside AETC that have fundamentally reshaped how we teach and learn, like Pilot Training Next, which has grown into you Pilot Training Transformation. And also on the technical side, Tech Training Transformation. But and so we see instances of where you can have AI and big data and virtual reality that are very helpful. Sometimes it’s blended together. Sometimes it’s in a mixed situation. And we’re experimenting, but it’s very helpful.

And it’s not just for technical things. Air University, for instance, has a course that’s a massive hit with the Air Force called Leadership Development course. And we use avatars to be able to teach leadership situations. And you may kind of be skeptical unless you’ve run through it, to where avatars that are responding and reacting to situations project a right mentality that you don’t get when it’s obvious that you’re role playing with live people. So there are a lot of really cutting-edge areas that we’ve seen a lot of fruit of the labor. So technology has been very beneficial. And we’re gonna continue to be on the vanguard of that for the Air Force.

Raaberg: I can’t wait to hear your answer, Gen. Bratton.

Bratton: I tell you, we were, I was at the Air Force modeling agency just two days ago. And they had a cockpit with VR goggles there. And they put me right, I was in T-6 in their pattern at Randolph and crashed it. So, you know, sorry about that. It was a pretty incredible capability. I mean, to put that on and see all the building, there’s ATC headquarters that were just in a couple weeks ago. That it goes right back to the space domain where Guardians will all, you know, never go into the domain, that is the way to access it for sure.

Now, how do we think about that? And what makes it you know, not a gimmick, and actual hitting training objectives and value-added in training is the important piece to work through. Because, you know, it’ll be cool to put VR goggles on and be in the space domain, you know, make it dark and cold for them and work through that. But what is the training objective we’re getting after? How does that lead to development of tactics, techniques and procedures? I think we’ve got to really think that through before we just go all-in on that. But absolutely the future, I think, for space training.

Raaberg: We’ve got about four minutes remaining. And I’d really like to bring this all together now but more in a real-world perspective. So really, I’m sure you both are keenly evaluating both training and readiness impact as a result of the most recent withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and as Russia’s war against Ukraine intensifies. You know, that’s serious business for somebody who’s beginning their service. So, you know, essentially, how do you now grasp that diversity of thinking that’s out there in your command as a result of events going on now?

Webb: Yeah, there’s a lot. I’ll try to keep this concise because current events of the last few months, whether it’s the Afghan situation with evacuees or ongoing missions now—really drive home for me the importance of the human domain, the Airmen, the Guardian. And so I’m not joking when I say the asymmetric advantage is how we as Americans, and we in the Air Force—the Department of the Air Force—grow our Airmen and Guardians. There are allies that look at the United States of America and go ‘professionalized NCO Corps is the difference in what we got.’ Because we have allies that have officers and conscripts and nothing in between. And the fundamental difference they see is the professionalized NCO Corps. I would add that it’s a professionalized NCO Corps and the midcareer officers that are the fundamental game-changers. And you have to look no further than current events to recognize that the human domain—people—make a fundamental difference. OK? I don’t have to get into specifics; you know exactly what I’m talking about. Leadership still matters. Being well led is very, very important. This is why I’ve loved being in AETC because it’s about at the end of the day, the people—the Airmen and the Guardians—and this is the asymmetric advantage.”

Raaberg: Governor? Final word, please.

Bratton: Yes, sir. Thanks, I’ll tell you that the Air Force has prepared me, over and over again, for all the challenges throughout my career. You know, from time in Baghdad as a space operator, with 50,000 Army folks around me, I was well prepared for all those things, because of the training, education, PME, advanced training that I’d received and felt comfortable that I could contribute to the fight. We owe that to all of our Guardians, that when they come into conflict in the space domain, when they’re up against an adversary—whether in low-Earth orbit or out at geosynchronous—that they’re prepared for that. You know, those first 10 sorties are under their belt, that they’ve got the education and training that they need. And this move to orbital warfare to threats on orbit, that is very different than what I grew up with as a space operator.

We have to up our game a little bit on the space side to make sure that they’re not in a position where they’re facing an adversary and don’t feel that they’re ready for it. And so I think there’s things that we’re doing right now, there’s things that were started before the Space Force that we’re going to accelerate on, especially in the advanced training, the on-orbit activity. But I think laying that foundation and then reinforcing it, reinforcing it, reinforcing it—throughout a career—is what we’re all about, and we’re getting after it every day. We’re getting after it, quite frankly, with a lot of help from the teammates in AETC and other places. So, thanks, y’all. Thanks for the time today. Really appreciate it.

Raaberg: Yeah, Gen. Webb, Gen. Bratton, boy—what an insightful panel. All I felt was one team, one fight. So thank you on my behalf and on behalf of the Air Force Association. Just so everybody knows in lieu of speaker gifts, the Air Force Association made a donation to allow additional Guardians and Airmen to attend last night’s barbecue. So thank you. Our final Air Force Association session, the award ceremony, and Spark Tank event—which you do not wish to miss—is taking place at 11:20 in the big ballroom, the Gatlin Room. So come join us. And, again, big round of applause for our two leaders up front.

PACAF’s Wilsbach: China and Russia Cooperate but Are Not Interoperable—No One in Charge

March 14, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

China and Russia cooperate militarily and have held a number of joint exercises, but they don’t have interoperable forces, and there’s competition between them as to just who’s in charge of their erstwhile alliance, said Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, during an AFA Mitchell Institute streaming discussion March 14.

“We’ve seen some integrated bomber patrols,” Wilsbach said, in which Chinese and Russian bombers, “along with their command control aircraft and tankers, have done very short exercises together through the Pacific,” but these have not been numerous.

The countries have pledged mutual support in recent weeks, particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which some have argued may present China with an opening to attack Taiwan. Wilsbach did not mention that the two countries have jointly practiced amphibious landings in recent years.

“There’s been a couple of other exercises that we’ve seen them do together, but I would not say that they’re interoperable in any way,” Wilsbach added. “Their systems are quite different.” He added that it’s “interesting to see the power play: China thinks that they should be the lead, and Russia thinks they should be the lead, so I’m fairly happy with that tension, there.” Wilsbach said he believes this issue will “be a problem for them” in the future.

Besides their own lack of interoperability, China and Russia can’t help but see that the U.S. and its allies and partners in the Pacific do possess this advantage, Wilsbach said.

“They see us flying with Republic of Korea and with Japan and Australia,” as well as with Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore.

“We fly with them routinely,” he noted, “And we’re interoperable … We’re flying a lot of the same equipment. We’re even data-linking together, in some cases. And, the tactics are very similar.” This interoperability is something “the Chinese really don’t have.”

The level of joint activity between Russia and China has dwindled since the invasion, Wilsbach reported, as “I do think they [Russia] are pretty well occupied” with Ukraine.

He said he also can’t tell whether China was in on the Russian invasion and played a role, or was as much a spectator as the rest of the world. Chinese president Xi Jinping said he did not expect Russia to invade Ukraine, despite its bellicose rhetoric.

“What happened there?” Wilsbach asked rhetorically. “Was Xi wrong? Was [he] part of the disinformation campaign that Russia was putting out? Or was he surprised, duped by the Russians?

Wilsbach said he didn’t know the answer but “it certainly makes me wonder about everything else that Xi says.” He added that he thinks China is taking “a pretty cautious approach right now, based on uncertainty of how this might turn out” and the “international backlash that’s happened toward Russia. They probably don’t want to get caught up in that.” Even so, “it still is very surprising that they’ve come up with the support rhetoric that they have.”

Broadly, China continues to operate in the Pacific “in many instances, outside the rule of law,” Wilsbach said, periodically making incursions on neighbor territory, using “predatory lending practices” to achieve influence in a number of countries, and denying democracy to Hong Kong.

The U.S. Air Force continues to do daily training in the region, which is one of the key differences from “a year or two ago: our frequent daily operations” that are “fully integrated” with the Navy and Marine Corps, Wilsbach reported, “mostly west of the [International] Date Line, to demonstrate what U.S. forces can do in that part of the world.”

He said he hopes that one of the “key lessons” the Chinese are taking from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is “the solidarity of the global community” in opposing “an unprovoked attack on a neighbor,” and the onerous sanctions that have economically crippled Moscow.

“I’m hoping China recognizes that,” he added, and that if China behaves in a similar way against Taiwan or another neighbor, “something more robust will happen,” Wilsbach said. An unprovoked attack would “provide solidarity for the nations to come together and oppose something like that.” He said it makes him chuckle that China accuses the U.S. of trying to create a NATO of the Pacific, but it’s China’s own actions that are inspiring those discussions. China should also consider, before undertaking adventurism like Russia’s, ”some of the terrain they would have to contend with” and the opposition of regional countries. Russia’s aggression has consumed much of its national treasure: “They’ve killed many of their own people as well as Ukrainians, and I’m hopeful China will pay attention to that, as well.”

New Calls for Adding Ukrainian Air Defenses and ‘More Deadly Sanctions’ on Russia

March 14, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Russia’s cruise missile attack on the Yavoriv military training facility near the Polish border in western Ukraine on March 13 highlights Ukraine’s need for more air defenses, and the United States and the West can do more to help Ukraine, a Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine.

A day before Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was to fly to Europe for a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels and a visit to NATO eastern flank allies Slovakia and Bulgaria, the battle for air superiority remains critical to the defense of Ukraine.

“First of all, introduce some more deadly sanctions for Russia,” the Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine on the condition of anonymity. “Point Number Two, close the sky. But at least close the sky over the nuclear facilities.”

Russian forces took the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the opening days of the Feb. 24 invasion and captured the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant shortly after, raising the risk of a terrorist attack or a nuclear disaster.

“No one controls what is going on,” the official said. “So, air defense is crucial.”

A U.S. senior defense official said March 14 that Russian long-range missiles were used in the assault of western Ukraine, including more than two dozen cruise missiles that damaged seven structures at the Yavoriv military training facility. The official said the base was not a transit point for Western defense assistance.

The Ukrainian official said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s newly formed International Legion of volunteer fighters were not training at the facility, where dining, medical, and housing facilities were damaged. The official could not confirm whether Ukrainian jets were damaged in the round of strikes in the west that began March 11.

The Pentagon underscored that the long-range attacks by Russia highlight that even if the United States or NATO were to establish a no-fly zone, it would not have prevented the weekend strike. In order to avoid direct confrontation with Russia, the U.S. has rejected calls to establish a no-fly zone.

“These air-launch cruise missiles were launched from long-range bombers,” the Pentagon official said—“Russian long-range bombers from Russian airspace, not from inside Ukrainian airspace.”

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said March 14 that U.S. statements such as ruling out a no-fly zone or the transfer of Polish MiGs do not give Putin carte blanche.

“Let’s talk about what actually is happening,” Kirby said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine. Kirby highlighted how the U.S. is talking to Ukraine about its needs and quickly delivering defense assistance.

“I doubt Putin would, after making as little progress as he has made in this unprovoked war of his, would be hard pressed to say that somehow he is being aided by statements that we are making about what we will or what we won’t do.”

New Defense Assistance

DOD said it is working with partners and allies in the region and beyond to coordinate the assistance Ukraine needs. Before DOD could even close out a $300 million drawdown package of assistance to Ukraine, President Joe Biden authorized another $200 million in assistance March 12.

The senior defense official told Air Force Magazine that DOD is trying to “get them the systems that they’re good at using,” including Turkish drones, surface-to-air missile systems, man-portable air-defense systems, and Javelin anti-tank missiles.

The Ukrainian official said the type of assistance flowing from the United States, including ammunition, Javelins, and stingers, have been “crucial” but that Ukraine needs aircraft and ground air defense.

On March 8, DOD flatly rejected a Polish proposal to transfer 24 MiG fighters to the United States for onward transfer to Ukraine. The Pentagon called the proposal not “tenable” for its potential to provoke Russia. NATO Supreme Allied Commander and U.S. European Command chief Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters said combat jets would be of little use to Ukraine.

Russia is believed to fly some 200 sorties per day while Ukraine flies 5 to 10 sorties in skies covered completely by Russian surface-to-air offensive missiles capabilities.

The Ukrainian official said some Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries possess the Soviet-era systems, including S-300 and Buk medium-range missile defense systems, capable of shooting down cruise missiles.

“We asked [for] some systems, which, first of all, we know how to how to handle,” the official said. “We are ready also to go to send our specialists to learn something on other equipment which we do not have now.”

The American senior defense official told Air Force Magazine that training Ukrainians on an unfamiliar system was not yet under consideration.

Austin is expected to discuss with Slovakia how it can provide additional support to Ukraine. Slovakia possesses S-300 missile defense systems and, along with Hungary, is thought to provide possible alternative overland supply routes. Poland has handled the majority of defense resupplies from the 14 nations supporting Ukraine.

Another defense official told Air Force Magazine that the U.S. military is beginning to worry that Russia may start to strike supply routes.

“My big concern is at what point do the Russians decide that they have to cut off the … ground line of communication?” the official said. “The supply lines from Poland into Ukraine or from anywhere into Ukraine. When does Russia feel like, you know, between the sanctions and the military support to the Ukrainians, when do they feel like that’s provocative enough to strike back?”

The March 13 missile strikes and the March 11 strikes against air bases in Lutsk, near the Polish border, and Ivano-Frankivsk, near the Ukrainian border with Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, did not target supply routes.

“We have a different network of supply routes,” the Ukrainian official said. “At this moment, I don’t have information that they managed to hit something with foreign aid.”

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian official said trucks continue to deliver goods from Germany across the Polish border and into Belarus, indicating continued trade with Russia.

“There are still many companies who are working in Russia. There are still some banks who are working in Russia,” the official added. “They should be cut off from all the civilized world. They have to feel it. Everyone in Russia has to feel these sanctions.”