Memorial Day: A Time to Reflect and Remember

May 27, 2022

Memorial Day for so many is an extra day off, a time for pool openings, backyard barbeques, and the unofficial start of summer. For those who served, it is something far more solemn: A time to think about those who gave their all for their country.

In a Memorial Day message to the force, Air Force leaders expressed gratitude for the “courageous sacrifice” for those who paid the ultimate price for freedom and those who serve and sacrifice daily to defend and protect the United States. Calling the holiday a “solemn opportunity,” they urged the entire Air Force family to “reaffirm our own commitment of selfless service.”

“We are inspired every day by you—the Airmen, Guardians, and families who are so willing to serve and defend the freedom we enjoy,” wrote Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman, and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass. “We are also moved, especially today, by those who gave their last full measure of devotion in service to our Nation.”

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. honors those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. United States Air Force Band Video.

SDA Awards Contract for ‘Most Critical Element’ of Tranche 1 of Satellite Constellation

May 27, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Development Agency has already awarded contracts for most of the satellites that will form the beginnings of its massive planned constellation in low-Earth orbit, and on May 26 the agency awarded a deal for the ground systems to go with it.

General Dynamics Mission Systems won the contract, worth up to $324 million, to establish the ground operations and integration segment of Tranche 1 of the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), the Pentagon announced.

As part of the deal, General Dynamics and its partners will establish two operations centers, one at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., and one at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. It will also build 12 ground stations—eight for Ka-band frequencies, two for S-band, and four with optical communications, an SDA official told reporters.

SDA, which is scheduled to transition fully into the Space Force later this year, has already awarded contracts for more than 120 satellites and is looking to add still more to its first tranche of the constellation—Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and York Space Systems have all earned SDA contracts to design satellites, and more are to come.

It will be up to General Dynamics to develop “a common ground architecture, which integrates base and ground segments from multiple vendors in multiple configurations and allows … mission operations in a mesh networking control,” the SDA official said.

The Space Development Agency’s strategy includes awarding contracts to multiple vendors and encouraging unsuccessful bidders to try again for later tranches, as the agency looks to build an open satellite constellation without so-called “vendor lock.”

That approach, however, means that having a ground segment operator that can integrate all the different contractors into one system “really is the most critical element of Tranche 1,” the SDA official said, adding that it also “carries the highest risk for the overall Tranche 1 successful performance.”

That’s because “without a ground segment, our space vehicles orbiting around the Earth can’t really do what we need them to do,” the official said. “They can do things autonomously, but really in order to make things work as a complete network, as a complete enterprise, you really do need the ground segments to manage the enterprise and the mesh and the control of the space layer.”

Just as SDA has tried to avoid “vendor lock” with its satellite awards, it is also trying to ensure the O&I ground segment doesn’t get stuck with one contractor. To do so, the contract award details a strategy that “incorporates open architecture concepts and develops interfaces that can be communicated and standardized, so that the integration with all the different [space vehicle] vendors as they come on board can feed into the overarching ground networking enterprise,” the official said.

All told, SDA is estimating that Tranche 1 of the NDSA will consist of 166 satellites—126 for the Transport layer, dedicated to data and communications that will serve as the “backbone” for joint all-domain command and control; 28 for the Tracking layer, which will detect, identify, and track hypersonic weapons and other advanced missile threats; and 18 for the Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation System, which SDA says will augment the Transport Layer “with demonstration and experimental capability.”

The first Tranche 1 satellites in the Transport layer are slated for launch no later than September 2024, with the first Tracking layer satellites currently scheduled for April 2025. But first, SDA plans to launch “Tranche 0,” a relatively small collection of 28 satellites, no later than 2023. Tranche 0 will include 20 satellites in the Transport layer, 10 each from Lockheed and York, and eight in the Tracking layer, with L3Harris and SpaceX supplying four each.

Cavoli: Sweden and Finland As New NATO Members Would Be Big Plus, Small Drag

May 27, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

If Finland and Sweden are admitted to NATO, they would make a huge contribution to the alliance and exact only a small additional investment from the U.S., Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In his confirmation hearing to be Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Cavoli, head of U.S. Army forces in Europe, was asked if, in his professional military opinion, adding Finland and Sweden would be a net gain for NATO. He answered that, “I look forward to the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance from the military perspective.”

Each of those countries’ militaries “brings quite a bit of capability and capacity to the alliance from Day One,” he said, asserting that Finland’s army is “large, … well equipped, very well trained, very quickly [expandable], exercised very frequently, and absolutely expert in defending” its border with Russia.

Sweden has a growing military—whose ground forces will increase by a third in the next few years—and it has a large and capable naval fleet, with ports on the Baltic Sea, Cavoli said.

The addition of these two countries would mean “the entire [Baltic] Sea, with the exception of … a few kilometers, will be the coastline of NATO nations, which will create a very different geometry in the area,” he pointed out.

This fact creates an “almost geometric” increase in dilemmas for the Russians, Cavoli said, which it does not now have to deal with, “as they sail forth from St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad. So it will be advantageous.”

Finland has a history of defending itself against Russia in the “Winter War” of 1939, when that country repelled a Soviet invasion with much smaller forces, across an 800-mile-long border, Cavoli noted.

“That Winter War is studied not just by western armies, but as a model of how to beat a larger force, studied by the Russians as an important lesson to learn from their past,” Cavoli said.

Asked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) if Finland represents a “hot stove” the Russians would not want to touch, Cavoli said “I wouldn’t want to do it if I were them.”

Russia “has not put too many ground forces on that border. It’s been an ‘economy-of-force theater’ for them, because they thought they had a relationship with Finland that allowed them to do that. This allowed Russia to concentrate ground forces in other places. That possibility will now go away for Russia,” Cavoli said, indicating that Russia will have to spread its forces over a wider area to match NATO.

“In addition to that, the Finns … are absolutely expert in defending that border,” Cavoli said, noting that he had made a snowmobile trip with the head of the Finish army along most of the frontier and admired the preparations and fortifications there.

In the air domain, Cavoli said Finland has American fighter jets—he misspoke, saying Finland has F-15s when in fact, it has F/A-18s—and has signed up to buy 64 F-35 fighters, “so they will arrive bringing capacity and capability.”

Cavoli said his Swedish counterpart, Gen. Karl Engelbrektson, is approved for “a 200-percent increase in his acquisition budget over a five-year period,” and Sweden is in the process of integrating Patriot air defense missiles into their portfolio; the first battery is already in place, he noted.

Sweden’s navy in the Baltic will also be “of enormous military significance to the alliance,” Cavoli said. The island of Gotland, which is Swedish territory, is an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the region. He also praised Sweden’s underwater and submarine capabilities.

The two countries could easily be integrated into the NATO command structure, Cavoli said, noting that the U.S. and NATO conduct numerous exercises with both countries, and there is common equipment and operational concepts. Besides Cavoli’s own Army component, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, “do this all the time, as well.”

“We do exercises with Finland. I’ve got Soldiers in Finland right now,” Cavoli noted. “We just brought a couple of Stryker companies back out of there, and we’ve got a parachute battalion going up there this summer. We exercise frequently with Sweden, to include high-end air and missile defense.”

Cavoli thinks “it will be quite easy to integrate them quickly. We’ve been integrating them in our large-scale exercises as well as our operations abroad for some years, now.”

He said Sweden has agreed to up its defense spending to two percent of GDP by 2028, but the Swedish army chief has told him Sweden will more likely “get there by 2024.”

Sweden has adopted “a model of 3, 2, 1,” Cavoli explained.

“Go up to three brigades, which is adding an additional brigade—that’s adding a big chunk of it right there—The second part is to add high-end capabilities, so, the purchase of Patriot, which my command is helping them integrate into their units right now” and adding even higher technology systems, particularly in air and missile defense, he said.

Asked by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) if adding two new countries to the NATO alliance would “force the U.S. to do more than we are currently obligated to,” Cavoli responded that the U.S. would probably not see a large increase in its commitment to NATO as a result.

“I remain of the opinion … that at least in the ground domain, that this is not going to be a requirement for large additional forces, or [even] additional forces,” Cavoli said.

“I think exercises, and occasional presence—like we do with any ally—will increase.”

Pressed by Hawley on whether the admissions would require more basing or a shift in U.S. posture, Cavoli said, “I don’t know right now. The word ‘basing’ carries with it an enormous amount of other implications that I would have to consider deeply.”

He promised that if confirmed, he would provide Hawley with a detailed analysis of what admitting Finland and Sweden would require in terms of additional U.S. outlays to NATO.

US Exercises with Japan, South Korea in Response to North Korean Missile Test

May 26, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

In a show force over the Pacific, the U.S. conducted separate bilateral exercises with South Korea and Japan in response to North Korea’s May 24 ballistic missile test. The North’s test reportedly included an intercontinental ballistic missile, launched while President Joe Biden flew home from the region.

“This exercise was conducted to demonstrate our nation’s rapid reaction capabilities, high levels of force readiness, close coordination, bilateral interoperability, and credible deterrent capacity,” read a statement from U.S. Indo-Pacific command, referring to the exercise with Japan conducted on May 25.

The INDOPACOM statement also said that the U.S. and Japan’s Air Self-Defense force conducted a combined capabilities exercise over the Sea of Japan to “deter and counter regional threats.”

The exercise between the United States and South Korea included the firing of a Republic of Korea (ROK) Hyunmu-2 missile May 25 using the U.S. Army’s Tactical Missile System.

“To demonstrate the ability of the combined ROK-U.S. force to respond quickly to crisis events, the U.S. Eighth Army and Republic of Korea military personnel conducted a combined live-fire exercise,” read a statement from U.S. Forces Korea.

“Missiles were fired from the northeast of South Korea into the East Sea following appropriate notifications for air and maritime safety,” the statement said.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said May 26 that the U.S. is not afraid to respond with shows of force to North Korea’s violations of UN Security Council resolutions.

“We clearly are willing to do things bilaterally with either ally as well as trilaterally and we’ve already proven that,” he said.

Kirby said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III is keen on improving trilateral cooperation between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, and there may be more exercises to come.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command did not immediately respond to questions by Air Force Magazine about the exercises.

In recent days, Austin has called both his Japanese and Korean counterparts to discuss Defense Department analysis regarding the reputed three missiles launched by North Korea. While both South Korea and Japan have released statements describing North Korea’s 17th series of missile tests, including distances traveled, success, and the ICBM threat, the Pentagon has thus far refused to go beyond describing the bout as “multiple ballistic missile launches.”

“We’re still analyzing the data in the intelligence,” Kirby said. “We haven’t come to any final conclusions.”

North Korea’s ballistic missile launch was not the only adversarial activity of the week in the Pacific. On May 24, China and Russia conducted a joint exercise with bombers.

“They flew over the Sea of Japan and continued through the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea,” Kirby said, noting that the complex bomber exercise was likely planned far in advance. “It’s clear that China has and continues to look for ways to prioritize their relationship with Russia versus prioritizing the relationships with other countries in the Indo-Pacific.

Kirby went so far as to say that China was “alienating and isolating themselves” from other Pacific nations due to their tactics of “coercion and intimidation,” which in the past have included both economic and aggressive military action.

China’s foreign minister, however, is currently visiting up to 10 small Pacific island nations to secure a pact that would cover areas ranging from security to fisheries. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on May 25 that China “has a pattern of offering shadowy, vague deals with little transparency or regional consultation in areas related to fishing, related to resource management, development, development assistance and more recently even security practices.”

Austin, for his part, hopes to engender goodwill with Asia-Pacific allies with his fourth trip to the region in June. His first stop will be in Singapore to attend the Shangri La Dialogue hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Austin is scheduled to visit Thailand as well in what is shaping up to be a race with China to court countries in the region.

“He will also have the chance to meet with key Indo-Pacific leaders to again advance some of our defense relationships in the region,” said Kirby. “The Secretary will travel to Bangkok as the United States and Thailand take important steps towards modernizing the U.S.-Thai alliance and expanding the depth and breadth of our military cooperation.”

Boeing Starts Delivering New Round of A-10 Wings

May 26, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

More than two and a half years after the Air Force finished its first round of re-winging efforts for the A-10, Boeing started delivering new wing sets to the service earlier this month, the company announced May 25.

The first wing set was delivered to Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Boeing said in a press release, where the Air Force has started work on replacing the wings on A-10s to keep them flying for longer.

The effort to replace the wings on the Air Force’s A-10 fleet began more than 15 years ago, when the service awarded a $1.1 billion contract to Boeing in 2007. The program temporarily ended in 2016 in part because of cost, but funding resumed a few years later, and USAF officials announced in August 2019 that it had finished work on 173 of the Thunderbolts.

A few weeks after that announcement, however, the Air Force announced it was giving Boeing another contract, this time for up to 112 wing assemblies. However, by that point the production line was “dry,” Boeing said in its release, with “tools and equipment housed in long-term storage.”

Production eventually resumed, and the company, “in partnership with Korean Aerospace Industries,” is working to deliver 50 wing sets to the Air Force.

The wing sets consist of outer wing assemblies, center wing assembly, control surfaces, and the fuselage integration kit, Boeing’s release states, and will extend the A-10’s flying life to 10,000 hours.

“The A-10 serves a critical role for the Air Force and Boeing is proud to extend our legacy of supporting the Thunderbolt and its mission,” Dan Gillian, vice president of U.S. Government Services for Boeing Global Services, said in a statement. “In partnership with the Air Force and our established supply base, we have started full rate production and are actively supporting the customer’s installation schedule.”

The re-winging of the A-10 comes as the Air Force continues its push to retire the attack aircraft, which remains beloved by many, despite Air Force officials’ continual protests that the airframe is not survivable in a contested environment and not relevant in a future fight.

Congress has repeatedly blocked any efforts to sunset the A-10 and instead have funded the wing replacement program, trying to keep the close air support aircraft going through the 2030s.

EUCOM Nominee: European Deterrence Initiative Has Been as Vital as ‘Oxygen’

May 26, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Over the past several years, the Pentagon has dedicated nearly $30 billion in funding to the European Deterrence Initiative, helping to bolster the U.S. military’s posture and flexibility in the region to respond to Russian aggression.

In that time, the initiative has become “absolutely vital” to U.S. forces in Europe, the potential next boss of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe told lawmakers on May 26—and he wants to expand its impacts to include an Air Force effort that has fallen off the radar for some.

Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli currently serves as commander of U.S. Army Europe-Africa and has a long history in the EUCOM area of responsibility. And in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cavoli gave the EDI a strong endorsement, especially as Russia’s war with Ukraine drags on.

“The European Deterrence Initiative has not just been important, it’s kind of been like oxygen to us for several years now,” Cavoli told senators. “It’s the thing that allows us to do all of the exercising, to build all of the infrastructure, to preposition all of the equipment that we’ve been using and that you’ve seen us use in response to this crisis.”

EDI, first called the European Reassurance Initiative, began in 2014 under then-President Barack Obama with $800 million. Over the next several years, funding progressively increased all the way to $6.5 billion in fiscal 2019. That was followed by a multi-year decline, down to $3.8 billion in the fiscal 2022 budget, as Pentagon officials said the initiative had achieved many of its goals, according to U.S. News and World Report.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has sparked a global response, and the Defense Department’s 2023 budget request would increase the EDI funding for the first time in four years, to roughly $4.2 billion.

Cavoli credited past funding for enabling forces to prepare for crises like the current one and he advocated for it to continue.

“Since my first tour as a general officer in Europe, when the original ERI was authorized and appropriated, we’ve been benefiting from it,” Cavoli said. “We’ve slowly but surely used it to put infrastructure into place where we are pre-positioning equipment. And now we exercise that equipment at a large scale with the funding that this committee authorizes. It’s absolutely vital to what we’ve been doing. And I think we’ve seen the benefits of it in our rapid ability to react in the past couple of months.”

Specifically, Cavoli noted that with EDI funds, the Army was able to preposition “very modern equipment—brigade combat team sets”—in Europe and train how to transport troops over to the continent and get the equipment out of storage fast.

So when the call came for thousands of troops to deploy to Europe to respond to Russia’s invasion and bolster NATO’s eastern flank, “we moved all the troops in about four days by aircraft. And those troops, the first of them, were putting rounds downrange in less than a week,” Cavoli said. “And by the end of three weeks, every single screwdriver in the brigade had been issued.”

Cavoli’s enthusiasm for pre-positioning Army equipment has been shared by EUCOM’s current commander Gen. Tod D. Wolters, who testified to its impact in March. But, in his written responses to Advance Policy Questions, Cavoli said he would consider expanding the concept.

“If confirmed, I foresee this strategy continuing in all domains (e.g., Air Force Deployable Air Base Sets (DABS), special operations forces equipment) because it enhances our ability to respond swiftly and decisively to assure our Allies and deter further Russian aggression,” Cavoli wrote.

The Air Force’s Deployable Air Base Set, sometimes referred to as an “air base in a box,” is a package that includes equipment, facilities, vehicles, and health service support that is prepositioned so it can be used to quickly establish base operations and generate sorties without needing to airlift in supplies.

The Air Force was set to begin procurement of DABS, but the Defense Department’s inspector general released a report in January 2019 faulting the effort for a lack of coordination or designated program manager, resulting in delays.

Since then, there hasn’t been much public discussion about DABS, but pre-positioning equipment to support rapid deployments would seem to dovetail with the Air Force’s own efforts in Agile Combat Employment, the operational concept of relying on small teams of multi-capable Airmen to operate in austere locations and move quickly. And work has continued in places like Campia Turzii Air Base, Romania, to build the infrastructure needed for DABS.

Nahom: F-35s Must be the Aggressors at Nellis and JPARC, Contract AdAir Not Enough

May 26, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

“Adversary Air” companies are no longer able to provide a worthwhile opponent to Air Force fighters at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex (JPARC) Alaska, so Air Combat Command is letting contracts lapse and working toward creating a permanent F-35 Aggressor capability.

“What we’re finding, now … is these contracts aren’t very effective at Nellis at the high-end training environment,” Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 17. “What they provide is not giving us what we need.”

Draken International has the adversary air contract for Nellis. The current contract, let in 2018, is for $280 million. Layoff notices from the company prompted Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) to question Nahom on USAF’s plans, telling him she is “concerned” there will be an AdAir gap while the Air Force establishes an F-35 Aggressor capability, saying that “63 percent” of Aggressor hours are supplied by contractors. Rosen quoted to him his response to a query, received by her staffers, that USAF will perform AdAir “completely organically … while ACC builds an F-35 Aggressor capability. But timing of this growth and capability is yet to be determined.”

Nahom explained that, “five, six years ago,” the Air Force didn’t need a fifth-generation adversary aircraft, but China now fields such fighters, and that has increased the sophistication needed for sparring partners at USAF’s two marquee fighter training ranges.

“As the China threat has stepped up, we have to step up our replication,” Nahom said, “And, what the contractor’s providing there at Nellis … is not what we need … for that high-end piece that we get at the NTTR (Nevada Test and Training Range) … and JPARC in Alaska … [They] are the only two places that you get that high-end training anywhere in the world.”

He said adversary air companies “do wonderful work for the Air Force, especially at our Formal Training Units, or FTUs, where we train basic fighter pilots how to fly.” The work at the FTUs is sufficient—“the contracts are very effective”—and Nahom suggested that this work will continue.

“While the Nellis training range is a national treasure—and it’s very important that we obtain that high-end capability—there’s also a transition that our service is making to more and more virtual training,” Nahom added. “And it’s critical because a lot of things cannot be replicated in ‘real.’” He emphasized that while flying hours in real-world aircraft are critical, so is USAF’s investment “in a virtual simulation environment.” It will “ensure that our aircrews maintain that edge.”

Draken has built a for-hire adversary air force that includes Russian MiG-21s, U.S. A-4 Skyhawks, French Mirage F1s and the derivative South African Atlas Cheetah, as well as Czech Aero L-159A Honey Badgers and MB-339s. Recently, it began acquiring ex-Dutch F-16A/Bs.

Just a year ago, a Draken F1 crashed at Nellis, killing the pilot. Another F1, this one belonging to Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), crashed at Luke Air Force in February, but the pilot ejected to safety. Two other contract AdAir accidents have occurred since 2018, but Nahom did not indicate that safety plays any role in USAF’s decision to bring high-end Aggressor work back in-house.

Draken, ATAC, and Tactical Air Support were awarded contracts in July 2020 worth up to $433.6 million to provide 5,418 annual sorties at five ACC bases. ACC envisioned contracting as much as $6.4 billion of adversary air work at 12 bases, including 40,000 hours of air-to-air and 10,000 hours of close air support work. It’s not clear how much of that work will not be awarded given ACC’s decision to make Aggressor work at Nellis and JPARC organic. Other companies authorized to bid on the AdAir work include Air USA, Blue Air Training, Coastal Defense, and Top Aces Corp.

An industry source said Draken was given only 60 days notice of the contract lapse, after the Air Force “led them to believe they would still be in high demand.” There is “no published Air Force vision” for AdAir or electronic warfare aggressors, he said, and the service will “struggle to find” enough training resources as a result of “its choice to drastically cut contract AdAir.”

This story was updated at 8:59 a.m. Eastern time July 5, 2022, to correct the state and party affiliation of Sen. Jacky Rosen.

New Commanders Tapped for Air Force Sustainment Center, 16th Air Force

May 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A pair of Air Force generals are set to receive third stars and take over new commands. The Pentagon announced a new slate of nominations May 25.

President Joe Biden nominated Maj. Gen. Stacey T. Hawkins to become a lieutenant general and the new commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The Air Force Sustainment Center oversees most of the service’s maintenance and installation support enterprises and monitors supply chain activities. Weapons system sustainment accounts for tens of millions of dollars every year in the Air Force budget.

Hawkins currently serves as director of logistics, engineering, and force protection at Air Combat Command. With a background in maintenance operations, Hawkins previously served at Tinker in 2012 and 2013 as the deputy commander for maintenance at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, a unit within the Air Force Sustainment Center.

The Air Force Sustainment Center is currently led by Lt. Gen. Tom D. Miller, who has held the job since August 2021.

Also nominated for a third star May 25 was Maj. Gen. Kevin B. Kennedy, with an appointment as commander of the 16th Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

The 16th Air Force was activated in 2019, the result of an effort within Air Combat Command to merge its intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, cyber, weather, and other units into one “information warfare” numbered Air Force. The digitally-focused NAF has taken the lead in areas such as cyber and spectrum warfare, areas of conflict in the so-called “gray zone” short of kinetic attacks.

Kennedy, if confirmed, would replace Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, the NAF’s first commander. Kennedy currently serves as director of operations for U.S. Cyber Command and has previously worked in several positions under the Air Force’s chief information officer.

In addition to Hawkins and Kennedy, the Pentagon also announced two nominees for promotions. Brig. Gen. John J. Bartrum and Brig. Gen. Richard L. Kemble are to both receive second stars.

Barnum currently serves as the mobilization assistant to the surgeon general of the Air Force, while Kemble is the director of plans, programs, and requirements for Air Force Reserve Command.

Austin Warns Academy Grads of Adversary Tests; Kendall Says Transformational Change Is Coming

May 25, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Blue skies graced Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colo., where 973 Air Force Academy cadets graduated May 25 and began careers facing unprecedented challenges and technological advances. There, commencement speaker Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III warned that adversaries are testing America’s values.

“Today, America’s adversaries are testing the very values that you swore to defend,” Austin told the new second lieutenants. “You’re here to defend America’s security and win America’s wars. But we’re also here to safeguard America’s values.”

Austin pointed to two examples: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggressive behavior in the Pacific.

The defense Secretary gave five pieces of advice, including the importance of teamwork, which he described in terms of U.S. allies and partners.

“America’s unrivaled network of allies and partners is so important,” Austin reflected. “They’re crucial to what I call integrated deterrence. They extend our strength; they magnify our power; and they deepen our security.”

Austin commended the graduates for withstanding the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted graduates to their dorm rooms during their sophomore year, and told them that the world they face will require discipline and innovation.

Of the 973 graduates, 16 represent 15 countries, including lesser-known American partners on the African continent such as Cameroon, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Niger; and Central Asian and Indo-Pacific countries including Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, and Thailand.

Graduates were 73 percent male and 27 percent female, and 31 percent represented minorities. Of the graduates, 461 were rated, including 417 pilots, 11 combat systems officers, nine air battle managers, and 24 remotely piloted aircraft operators. Another 382 graduates were non-rated, and 94 graduates commissioned into the Space Force. Three graduates cross-commissioned into the Army and six into the Marine Corps.

Three cadets received scholarships for advanced degrees in the United Kingdom, including two Marshall scholarships and one Holaday Scholarship, while two more cadets received fellowships at Stanford University.

“I know that you’re ready because I see Academy graduates shine every day,” Austin said. “When I travel the world from Eastern Europe to the Indo-Pacific to remote bases, I see young lieutenants and captains just like yourself.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said cadets will face transformational change in their careers.

“You begin your service just as we are entering a new and more dangerous strategic era,” Kendall said.

“You are at an inflection point in history,” he added, noting the shift from counterinsurgency to great power competition in the past two decades. “You must be prepared to do your duty in an environment that features the greatest strategic challenge we’ve seen in a lifetime, my lifetime at least. And some of the most significant technological changes in the history of warfare.”

Kendall said graduates’ Air Force careers will be dominated by the National Defense Strategy‘s pacing threat of China, just as he faced the Soviet threat when he graduated from the Army’s U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1971.

“You, too, will face a strategic, well-resourced threat that is doing all it can to be able to defeat the Air and Space Forces that you joined today,” Kendall said. “I believe that you are ready.”