As Space Force Grows, More Airmen May Be Needed for Support

May 10, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

While the Space Force continues to grow, with more inter-service transfers and a substantially larger budget projected in 2023, the new service’s base support functions are still staffed almost entirely by Air Force personnel—and that’s unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, leaders of the Space Force’s Peterson-Schriever Garrison said May 9.

As the commander and command chief master sergeant of the Peterson-Schriever Garrison, respectively, Col. Zachary “Shay” Warakomski and Chief Master Sgt. Sevin Balkuvvar are emblematic of that unique dynamic—Warakomski is a Guardian; Balkuvvar is an Airman.

“Peterson-Schriever Garrison, most people don’t know this, but we are actually 97 percent Airmen,” Balkuvvar said during an AFA Air & Space Warfighters in Action virtual event. “We do provide all the support—most of the support comes from the Airmen with the mission support and medical group and also staff agency backgrounds, so the deltas and our Guardians that are doing the mission can really continue to focus on their mission without having to worry about anything else.”

Col. Zachary “Shay” Warakomski, commander of the Peterson-Schriever Garrison, and Chief Master Sgt. Sevin Balkuvvar, Command Chief Master Sergeant, Peterson-Schriever Garrison, participated in a virtual Air & Space Warfighters in Action event on May 9, 2022.

Just about the only Guardians who are actually part of the garrison, Balkuvvar added, are part of space communications squadrons.

Within the Space Force’s three-tier structure of squadrons, deltas, and field commands, garrisons fill a niche, responsible for all the non-operational things that need to happen for the service to function.

“We have got to have defenders of the gate. We’ve got to have the contracted means in place. We have to have the … IT functions to provide the network and telephony aspects of that because we fight from home,” Warakomski said. “We fight from these power projection platforms. And so our space operators understand that. They get it. They know how critically important it is to have these Airmen in place, and the Guardians in the case of the comm squadrons, to be able to perform all of those functions.”

The Peterson-Schriever Garrison not only serves Peterson and Schriever Space Force Bases in Colorado but also Thule Air Base, Greenland, Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, Colo.; Kaena Point Space Force Station, Hawaii; and New Boston Space Force Station, N.H.

It’s an expansive portfolio, and it includes thousands of Airmen assigned to Space Force installations—there are approximately 8,000 such Airmen across every Space Force installation.

And while the Air Force and other services are expected to transfer more personnel into the Space Force soon—building the service’s end strength to 8,600 Guardians in fiscal 2023—the number of Airmen involved with the service may grow as well, Balkuvvar said.

“As the mission growth happens, the numbers for the Airmen may go up, just because, obviously, as we bring on more and more space operations, there’s going to be a need for more and more Airmen to be able to do the support,” said Balkuvvar. “But that is just yet to come.”

Whether that increase in Airmen supporting the Space Force will be matched by a growth in the number of Guardians is also still uncertain, Balkuvvar said—meaning that balance of 97 percent Airmen to 3 percent Guardians at the Peterson-Schriever Garrison could continue.

It’s a balance that Warakomski and others compare to the relationship between the Navy and the Marine Corps, with Marines operating under the Department of the Navy and sometimes sharing manpower.

But while the Marine Corps has its own judge advocates, financial managers, cooks, military police, logistics specialists, and more, the Space Force relies on Airmen to perform almost all of those duties. And that’s not likely to change, Warakomski predicted.

“I think that basically the relationship that the Air Force and the Space Force have established to date in terms of using [Air Force Materiel Command] as that servicing MAJCOM, I quite honestly would envision that going forward into the future,” Warakomski said. “A lot of that has to do with our end strength in the Space Force in terms of being the smallest service, the newest service, and being able to rely upon … the Department of the Air Force. … So from that standpoint, for the foreseeable future, I think that that’s basically where we’re going to probably remain.”

Ukraine Highlights Value, Opportunities for National Guard’s State Partnership Program

May 10, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

For years, the National Guard’s State Partnership Program, whereby individual states partner with other nations’ militaries to provide training and support, flew mostly under the radar. Costing roughly $40 million per year, it represents a tiny fraction of the Pentagon’s budget.

That’s changing as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stalls amid fierce resistance and the California National Guard’s partnership with Ukrainians is highlighted by local and national media and credited with providing crucial training.

Now, with SPP enjoying a surge in interest, the head of the National Guard Bureau is looking to ensure the program is set for the future.

Speaking at a Heritage Foundation webinar on May 9, Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson said it’s not just California’s National Guard that has helped prepare Ukraine’s armed forces for this moment.

The State Partnership first launched in 1993 following the end of the Cold War, as former Soviet-linked militaries sought American ties. Latvia wanted U.S. help to adopt a citizen-soldier model, similar to the U.S. At the same time, the U.S. government was looking for a way to expand military-to-military cooperation in central and Eastern Europe without threatening the new Russian Federation.

California and Ukraine were matched up that year and have now worked together for nearly three decades. And in that time, service members and leaders have developed tight bonds, something Hokanson argued is only possible with the Guard.

“[Maj. Gen.] Dave Baldwin has been the Adjutant General [of California] for just over 10 years. So because he has been there and because of the National Guard, most of our Soldiers and Airmen stay in that formation or in that state their entire career, the young sergeants that train with Ukrainian sergeants will become command sergeant majors one day, or senior enlisted leaders. And the same with our officers—the captains that trained together eventually become majors, lieutenant colonels, and then in some cases, actually chiefs of defense,” Hokanson said.

“And so if you look at Dave’s span, … because he has been there for almost 10 years, had you picked an Active-duty unit to do that, they would have gone through five or six different commanders. And every three years, the entire unit would have changed out.”

But the benefits of the program aren’t just for the foreign militaries getting to interact with the Guard, Hokanson said.

“One thing it does for the National Guard is it allows our Soldiers and Airmen to really visit a lot of other countries to look at the environment that they operate in, and to really see, in many cases, the same problems, just approached from a different angle. And so we learn a lot in those countries, in those interactions that we bring back to make our organizations better,” Hokanson said.

The program is also good for retention and readiness, Hokanson said, allowing Soldiers and Airmen to travel and gain new experiences. In some cases, he noted, Guardsmen will even visit their state’s partner country in their civilian life because of the bonds and appreciation they have built up.

The way Ukraine’s military is performing during this conflict, defying expectations of a quick Russian victory, is really what’s highlighted the partnership program’s importance. Such a performance, Hokanson said, is “not a surprise to us at all, because we’ve been training them and training with them for almost 29 years.”

That training ratcheted up in intensity after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, with the creation of the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine. Initially, the Army turned to an Active-duty unit to take the lead in training and advising Ukrainian Soldiers.

In 2016, however, the Guard took over. Since then, Hokanson said, “we’ve had eight different Guard states rotate in to do that training, and many of those folks still communicate with folks that they were training with in the Ukrainian army.”

The results speak for themselves.

“We worked very closely with them on small unit tactics, NCO or noncommissioned officer leadership. We worked on joint operations, logistics,” Hokanson said. “And what you’re seeing now is some of the areas that they’re being very successful in, [is] obviously completely attributable to their fact that they’re standing up and they’re fighting for their nation and their sovereignty. But within that, I think we’re also seeing some of that training has been very beneficial to them as well.”

Part of what makes the State Partnership Program so valuable, Hokanson noted, is its affordability. “Our budget is about 1 percent of the DOD budget when it comes to training with allies and partners,” he said. But given the spotlight on Ukraine, the increased emphasis on working with allies and partners in the new National Defense Strategy, and the size of the program, with 87 different partnerships across 93 different countries, there’s also a need to “take advantage of opportunities.”

Specifically, one of the Guard’s top legislative priorities in the coming months “is to ensure that we have consistent stable funding for this program,” Hokanson said.

That’s important, he explained, because other countries and militaries don’t all operate under the same October-to-September fiscal year schedule that the U.S. does. With more predictable, stable funding over time, “we can continue to plan long-term with each of these partners,” Hokanson said.

Innovative Technology Helps Airmen Navigate and Utilize Mental Health Resources

May 10, 2022

The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in mental health conditions for Americans in general, and for military service members, in particular. An annual report from Veterans Affairs found that the suicide rate for Veterans was about 50 percent higher than for non-veterans. In fact, the Air Force loses more Airmen to suicide than any other cause.

Talk therapy, resilience training, and stress management skills can all help Airmen avoid mental health crises. Unfortunately, seeing a therapist often disrupts daily operational activities and the referral process can take more than five weeks, on average. While a number of programs and organizations are devoted to helping Airmen exist, identifying the right resource for an individual is difficult and time consuming. A clear gap exists when it comes to delivering personalized, relevant resources to help our Airmen develop skills to manage stress and build resiliency in the field and back at home.

Fortunately, there is good news. In recent years, the Air Force has taken deliberate steps to encourage mental wellness and provide support for Airmen through innovative digital solutions. Air Force leaders have partnered with NeuroFlow, a Veteran-founded technology company. NeuroFlow connects Airmen and Guardians with on-post and community resources, such as Veteran Service Organizations tailored to meet their individual needs. NeuroFlow tracks health factors like fitness, sleep, loneliness, depression, and alcohol use. It also offers exercises and tools such as guided meditation, journaling, and evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) resources. The NeuroFlow platform encrypts individual health data and activity to ensure it is not publicly shared or integrated into official records. Additionally, Airmen can use NeuroFlow confidentially, which is crucial for combating the potential stigma of receiving mental health support.

“From a military perspective, we fly the plane for two hours, and then we spend 12 hours maintaining it. And we should be able to do at least that much for our human weapons systems, in terms of helping them and giving them the tools that they need to maintain their peak performance,” says clinical psychologist John F. Drozd, PhD, ABMP, who uses NeuroFlow with his military and veteran clients.

NeuroFlow aggregates user data and feeds it into a clinical dashboard that unit leaders can review to better understand the behavioral health trends of Airmen over time. The platform’s artificial intelligence algorithm can also flag individuals with declining mental health conditions or those at risk for self harm. To date, NeuroFlow has been supporting thousands of Airmen and has proactively identified over 150 individual users requiring additional support, connecting them to relevant support and crisis resources. Moreover, seventy-five percent of those with mental health conditions who completed a follow up 4-8 months after starting with NeuroFlow achieved a clinically significant improvement based on validated measurements.

Technology solutions like NeuroFlow not only help reframe the military’s conversation about suicide and mental health, but they represent an important evolution of digital health programs with a focus on care navigation and personalized support. Additionally, by practicing coping skills voluntarily and anonymously with NeuroFlow, Airmen are able to build resilience at their own pace, helping them feel more stable, in control, and prepared to meet challenges on and off the battlefield. NeuroFlow is proud to be actively supporting military mental wellness through its partnerships with the U.S. Air Force. For more information, visit the NeuroFlow website.

Biden Signs Ukraine Lend-Lease Bill as Putin Looks to Rally Support for War

May 9, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

On the anniversary of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, President Joe Biden signed a modern-day Ukraine Lend-Lease bill, while Russian President Vladimir Putin used “bluster” and “falsehoods” in a Red Square speech to rally public support for his war in Ukraine.

Biden called the law an “important tool of reference to support the government [of] Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”

The bill, which had bipartisan support, will streamline the President’s authority to enter into agreements with Ukraine to lend or lease defense articles to counter the Russian military invasion as the President awaits passage of a $33 billion supplemental funding bill to support Ukraine.

Before signing the lend-lease act, Biden reflected on World War II, noting: “Putin’s war [is] once more bringing wanton destruction in Europe,” while the European Union, which also backs Ukraine, is “reaffirming [an] enduring commitment to the future grounded in democracy, human rights, and peaceful resolution, and disagreements.”

Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Feb. 24, the Biden Administration has authorized more than $3.7 billion in defense assistance to Ukraine. On May 6, Biden approved another $150 million from his drawdown authority to pull weapons from U.S. stocks for Ukraine.

But there is only about $100 million remaining in presidential drawdown authority before funding runs dry.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said May 9 that defense assistance to Ukraine would likely run out by the third week of May. But, the current pace, which include several daily cargo flights of aid to Eastern Europe, will continue at the same clip.

“We’re not slowing it down,” Kirby told defense journalists. “We’ve gotten enough indications out of Congress, and there’s bipartisan support for supporting Ukraine.”

He added: “Everything coming out of the Hill tells us that this supplemental will be acted on and approved.”

The $33 billion supplemental is expected to last five months, and would keep a steady flow of defense assistance to Ukraine while helping to replenish U.S. stocks and those of European allies.

Putin’s Rhetoric

Meanwhile, in Red Square, before the pomp of a strident military parade, Putin claimed his “special operation” in Ukraine was justified to defend the “motherland” from a perceived threat posed by the West. The Russian leader reiterated his claims that the war was necessary to rid Ukraine of the threat posed by modern-day “Nazis.”

To the surprise of many security analysts, Putin did not call for a full-scale war or escalation of the conflict despite his forces’ suffering heavy losses in the first 75 days.

At the Pentagon podium, Kirby rejected Putin’s claims that Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, that the war was justified, and that the invasion was timely.

“We still heard some of the same bluster, some of the same falsehoods, some of the same, quite frankly, just untruth in terms of his rhetoric that we’ve heard from the beginning,” Kirby said. “Every time you think they just can’t fall to a new low, they prove you wrong.”

Earlier in the day, a senior defense official described the progress of Russia’s re-oriented forces in eastern Donbas region as “very limited.”

The Defense Department assessment was that Russian officers were anecdotally disobeying orders, and that battlefield progress had resorted to “single-digit kilometer” gains and a daily exchange of small, rural towns amid trench warfare and artillery exchanges.

Still, Biden said not backing Ukraine, and allowing Putin a victory would further harm democracy and U.S. interests.

“The bill demonstrates the support for Ukraine is pivotal at this moment,” Biden said. “The cost of the fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is even more costly, that’s why we’re staying in this.”

New Bill Aims to Highlight Pass-Through Funding’s Impact on the Air Force

May 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

When the Pentagon released its 2023 budget request on March 28, a graphic was shown to reporters breaking down the $773 billion in spending by department—and the Air Force led the way, with $243.1 billion in its accounts.

But when Air Force officials spoke to journalists later that afternoon, their budget documents showed just $194 billion, with an extra $40.1 billion marked as “non-blue.”

For Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), the larger DOD approach is a perfect example of a budgetary problem that has plagued the Air Force for years. And the department’s approach is in line with how he wants to start addressing that problem.

For several years now, Air Force officials, members of Congress, and defense analysts have raised concerns over so-called “pass-through” funding—billions of dollars that are officially included in the department’s top line but are never actually controlled by the Air Force, instead going to classified or undisclosed programs.

The practice, critics say, distorts public perception, making it seem as though the Air Force has more money than it actually does.

“Taxpayers and policy leaders need to know how their money is being spent and apportioned,” retired Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, president of the Air & Space Forces Association, said in a recent statement decrying the practice. “The pass-through distorts how the Congress and the American people view and understand Pentagon spending, a practice that hides funding from other agencies in a budget that has, for the past 30 years, been starved of the resources needed to maintain modern and ready Air and Space Forces.”

Now, Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, is taking the latest run at changing the system, introducing the Defense Budget Transparency Act alongside Rep. Kaialiʻi Kahele (D-Hawaii).

It’s not the first time a lawmaker has tried to take on the issue—Bacon himself introduced legislation in the last Congress attempting to end pass-through outright, transferring those funds from the Air Force to the Defense-wide budget.

That bill, however, went nowhere, as it became an issue of jurisdiction between the House Armed Services Committee, on which Bacon and Kahele sit, and the House Appropriations Committee, which doesn’t “want to change their budget or their processes,” Bacon told Air Force Magazine.

With appropriations holding sway over the budget, Bacon is taking a different approach with this new bill.

Instead of ending pass-through, the bill would require a third-party study of the issue, looking back over the last 20 years to determine how much of an effect it has had on the Air Force. It would also require the Defense Department to include a separate line item in its budget materials for any pass-through funding—not shifting it but simply drawing attention to it, like the Air Force did with its own budget documents.

“We’re trying to get the art of the possible,” Bacon said. “The Appropriations Committee is resistant to changing this, which I think is just wrong. But we’re going to try to push it out as far as the envelope will allow.”

“The Defense Budget Transparency Act of 2022 is a critical step toward clarifying our nation’s investment in its Air and Space Forces,” Wright said in a statement. “The resulting report will go far to reveal opportunities to strengthen America’s security in the face of burgeoning Chinese and Russian threats.

Whether the bill will make any more progress than past attempts remains to be seen, but Bacon said he and Kahele are taking a two-pronged approach, introducing it as standalone legislation while also trying to get it included in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

Regardless, Bacon, the former commander of the 55th Wing and director of ISR strategy, plans, doctrine, and force development at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, said he is prepared to keep pushing this issue.

“I think this is going to be one of those multi-year debates,” Bacon said. “I think we’re gonna win this because people like transparency, they like honesty. And I just think this practice cloaks the real budget numbers for the Air Force. And I think it’s misleading. … Most people in the [House Armed Services Committee] don’t even know about it.”

Bacon found out about that last point during a committee hearing in 2021 with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. He asked Austin about pass-through funding, and shortly thereafter, “I had like five or six guys come around the table and go, ‘What are you talking about? Explain this to us.’ Even some of the leadership in the committee said they didn’t know about this,” Bacon said.

As more and more lawmakers become aware of the issue, Bacon is optimistic that support will build. At the moment, though, he said the argument he has heard for keeping pass-through as it is boils down to two points: “It’s too complicated to send the money through OSD,” and “We don’t want to give more visibility to all these OSD agencies that are getting the money.”

Bacon waved aside the first issue—“They make it sound like it’s brain surgery or something. We don’t buy it,”—and said the second issue can be addressed in other ways.

“We don’t have to spell out who’s getting it,” Bacon said. “We can just have, instead of it going to the Air Force, send it to the OSD staff, and have the OSD staff take it from there. … Instead of using the Air Force as the middleman, use OSD as the middleman.”

Former USAF Astronaut—Now NASA’s No. 2—on Russia, the Future of the ISS, and the Military on the Moon

May 9, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Drawn closer by business interests and geopolitical necessity, the military and NASA “would be remiss” not to collaborate more, said the space agency’s No. 2 political appointee Pam Melroy.

Yet as the Defense Department has committed billions in weapons toward a Russian defeat in Ukraine, with both sides trading sanctions, Melroy—NASA’s deputy administrator and a former Air Force astronaut—said the war hadn’t yet hurt relations inside the International Space Station. There, U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts still work side by side.

Melroy touched on NASA’s shared interests with the military in an interview while visiting the aerospace engineering sciences department at the University of Colorado Boulder on May 5.

The ongoing goodwill she described among the space station crew, and continued cooperation with Russia’s space agency, included Russia’s safe return of a U.S. astronaut aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule in March.

But such good relations hadn’t been reflected in the headlines on Earth—or the conditions in orbit—over the past several months, when events surrounding the station served as both a preview and a sideshow to the invasion.

Precarious Scenario

A former test pilot who logged combat and combat support hours along the way, Melroy flew and commanded space shuttle missions, going to space three times, all of which were to construct the ISS.

NASA believes the now two-decades-old station could operate safely through 2031, but anything beyond 2024 would rely on Russia to extend its agreement to cooperate. Russia built and operates the Zvezda Service Module that houses aspects of the station’s operations including flight control and propulsion.

However, even with Russian crew onboard, the ISS became the focal point of news coverage following a Russian military demonstration in the run-up to the invasion, and the station has provided a rhetorical opportunity for the Russian government since.

ISS crew members had to take cover inside their return capsules Nov. 15, 2021, in the immediate aftermath of a Russian missile test that destroyed a defunct Soviet satellite. The collision created a debris field that passed too closely to the ISS in the subsequent orbits right after the hit.

Experts speculated that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intended the test as a “show of strength” as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border. Then a day after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, Dimitry Rogozin, began mentioning how the ISS would uncontrollably deorbit without Russia’s participation.

Pointing out that “it’s just important to understand that Rogozin is a politician, and he is operating in a deeply political environment in Russia right now,” Melroy said she hadn’t found anything alarming about a more recent remark.

Rather than saying in early May that Russia was walking away from the ISS when its agreement runs out in 2024, “he said that they will honor their commitment until 2024 and give us a one-year notice before they leave,” Melroy said.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that Russia’s anti-satellite test in November created sufficient debris to double the number of evasive maneuvers that satellites such as the ISS will have to make in low Earth orbit. Meanwhile, concern exists that some spacefaring entity could ultimately weaponize debris.

In a reference to Iran and North Korea testing intercontinental ballistic missiles, a fellow former astronaut of Melroy’s, now-Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), said in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 8:

“One concern is that ICBMs can be used to create a debris cloud in low Earth orbit, and that could impact U.S. satellites.”

‘Commercial’ in Common

Even with “very different, very distinct missions,” NASA and the military “need to be connected at the top, and we need to be connected at the operational working level,” said Melroy, describing the current scenario in which NASA personnel at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for example, work closely with military personnel at Patrick Space Force Base to carry out a busy calendar of space launches.

The same holds true for the teams who monitor the trajectory of the ISS to keep it from colliding with other objects in orbit.

At the highest administrative levels, NASA and DOD officials recognize that “what we each do impacts the other,” Melroy said. But “there is this big gap in the field, in the middle, that don’t actually work very closely together.”

However, “I think you see these places where industry is dragging us together,” she said, such as a mutual interest in the services of commercial remote sensing providers.

As DOD entities have begun to stitch together government and commercial space assets into a so-called “hybrid architecture,” NASA has demonstrated overt successes in contracting for things that the government would have otherwise bought and owned the hardware for.

Particularly fruitful over the past decade have been NASA’s public-private partnerships to fund transportation to and from the ISS. SpaceX and Northrop Grumman now resupply cargo—and, in SpaceX’s case, crew. The companies had to partially pay for the development of the space capsules that they could then turn into private fleets.

Melroy reported that companies given contracts more recently, to robotically deliver research payloads to the moon, “have found other customers right away.”

Incorporating commercial constellations is one strategy the Space Force is pursuing to fulfill Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s No. 1 “operational imperative” to create a resilient space architecture. Proliferating the numbers and types of surveillance sources, as the thinking goes, will make the U.S.’s overall operation more resilient.

Meanwhile, U.S. Space Command has said it’s investigating what services commercial providers have to offer that could fill capability gaps, though some experts question the legality of intermingling military and civilian property. At least one cyberattack against a U.S. satellite constellation has occurred during the war in Ukraine.

Military on the Moon

Aside from the possibility of a science station, Melroy dismissed the prospect of a future military base on the moon based on the U.S.’s participation in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

“I’m happy to report to you that as the deputy administrator of NASA, NASA will follow all treaties and laws, and I support and uphold that,” Melroy said.

The U.S. is “very separated in civil space and national security space,” Melroy said. “That’s not true around the world. What that means is [that] if you’re smart, you understand that other people may think we’re doing stuff together, even when we’re not.

“So actually making sure that we’re talking at the highest policy level [is important] about things like, ‘What are we doing? And what are the implications of that?’”

Military research and “other peaceful purposes” a military might undertake receive an exclusion under the treaty that otherwise prohibits the “establishment of military bases, installations, and fortifications; the testing of any type of weapons; and the conduct of military manuevers on celestial bodies.”

But as reported by Politico in March, the military already has plans for the moon that may amount to militarization, such as interest by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in building large structures there; and by the Air Force Research Laboratory in a surveillance network to cover the space between the Earth and the moon.

The commander of U.S. Space Command, Army Gen. James H. Dickinson, has said the military plans to “be there” for NASA and commercial providers of “critical” space infrastructure as activity picks up on and around the moon.

NASA and the military both have a stake in shaping norms of behavior in space, Melroy said, which along with the development of new technologies, could be another opportunity for NASA and the military to work together.

Pentagon Taking a ‘Three-FYDP’ Approach to Building Future Force

May 7, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon knows the equipment and posture it must have now and what it must have 15 years from now. But filling in the middle is what’s delaying the public release of the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, which now may not come out for several months, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks said.

Speaking at a Reagan Forum event to explain the connection between the defense budget request and the NDS, Hicks said the administration has fulfilled its requirement to provide Congress with a classified summary of the NSS and NDS.

But, “A strategy is not a document. A strategy is something that you live and execute, and it should be constantly reviewed and updated. That’s true of our NDS, it’s true of the National Security Strategy. And I do anticipate you’ll see that in the coming months,” she said. It’s important to take the time to “get that right,” she added, because of the fast pace of change in international security.

Hicks said the administration plans to “work with Congress” on addressing spending shortfalls resulting from inflation. The fiscal 2023 budget, she said, was built on inflation estimates that proved short of reality, and will need to be revisited.

The NSS is not yet a “finalized document,” Hicks said. Managing and organizing the provision of aid to Ukraine has consumed the attention of Administration leaders, she said while admitting, “you have to walk and chew gum at the same time.”

While the Administration would like to provide a “fuller” unclassified version of the NDS, “it’s appropriate to wait to see how the NSS is built out. So we make sure it’s … nested there.”

Despite criticisms that Russia was not deterred from attacking Ukraine, it has not attacked the U.S. or NATO, Hicks asserted, saying deterrence has been effective in that regard. The U.S. had no mutual-defense agreement with Ukraine, she noted, although the Administration and Congress have “delivered over $4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine” since 2020 “and over $3 billion since the invasion [began] on Feb. 24. That’s remarkable.” She also noted that President Joe Biden has requested an additional $33 billion in assistance to Ukraine, “$16 billion of which will be for the Department of Defense.”

Hicks explained that she’s “proselytizing a three-FYDP,” or five-year Future Years Defense Plan, view of meeting both immediate threats—such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—and longer-term threats, such as China’s designs on Taiwan.

The first FYDP—the one spelled out in the fiscal 2023 defense budget request—deals with the “here and now” threat, Hicks said, while two FYDPs away is the objective force. What’s taking time to plan is “how you get from here to there.”

The first FYDP is about “what do I need now. And ‘now’ for us … is ‘23 to ’27.” She also noted that 2027 is a “notable” year for China because it’s said it intends to have the capabilities necessary to take Taiwan by that time.

In the first FYDP, it’s “less on new capital investments that take a long time to come to fruition,” but on “that campaigning and deterrent capability today.” The focus is on survivability, cyber and space resilience, “guided munitions,” and a steady pace of nuclear modernization, she said, acknowledging the latter is an area where “we were under-invested in for so long that we’re now having to pay that price.”

Jumping ahead to the third FYDP, Hicks said that will be the “force design” period with “robots, and all the future stuff” that needs to be developed now, with heavy research and development.

The challenge will be winning the trust of Congress that “we … actually have a viable pathway to that.” The “lack of trust and confidence is what keeps sliding us back.”

Showing that there is a “viable pathway” to the force design is what happens in the middle FYDP, Hicks said, using new authorities from Congress and accelerating experimentation and building out the Joint Warfighting Concept.

Characteristic of the middle FYDP are “pathway finders, … making sure that digital backbone” and software efforts are “tying the concepts to actual capabilities that can be fielded. I think that’s where we have to make a lot of progress.”

What the Pentagon doesn’t want, she said, “is added topline that’s filled with new program, that we can’t support and afford in the out-years and that doesn’t cover inflation. That is my No. 1 concern.”

Hicks said the U.S. correctly predicted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and one of the pleasant “surprises” has been that NATO allies “have really embraced the moment” by heightening their readiness, providing aid, and standing together.

“And of course, the Ukrainian people have really demonstrated that the will to fight for your country to protect democracy is probably the most powerful tool” anyone has applied.

Although Russia was not deterred from attacking Ukraine, it has “not yet seen the full effects” of economic sanctions, and in their full “devastating” measure, Hicks said she thinks Russia will be deterred from expanding the scope of the war.

Hicks said there are lessons to be learned from Ukraine, although that conflict is “not done, … and lessons will build.” But “a major lesson is the will to fight and a demonstrated capability to fight.” That’s a “clear takeaway for Taiwan, … making sure they are investing themselves in the self-defense that they need to have.” The U.S. will support Taiwan with equipment but there are “more reforms they need to undertake, and we will support them on that.”

A broader takeaway is that “market economies … have huge throw-weight,” and “when they choose to bring that to bear, it can have devastating effect … That is a big lesson” and Europeans can conclude that large investments in defense can have strong deterrent effect. This will also be “a big takeaway for the Chinese on the costs of aggression.”

First Phoenix Ghost Training Complete as Ukraine Aid Shifts From Air Defense to UAS

May 6, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The flat, open lands of the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine call for a different type of weapon, and the U.S. is responding with more unmanned aerial systems and the training to use them, completing the first seven-day course with Ukrainians on the use of the Air Force’s Phoenix Ghost system.

About 20 Ukrainian soldiers are wrapping up their training on the Air Force’s newest UAS weapon, Phoenix Ghost. Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby declined to say where the training was conducted, how many more trainings may take place, and whether any of the new systems had arrived inside Ukraine. But Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A. LaPlante told journalists May 6 that the weapon was made by the Air Force’s Big Safari office, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, which works to quickly develop special-purpose weapons systems.

Wright-Patterson could not immediately respond to a request by Air Force Magazine for comment.

With a $33 billion supplemental before Congress and just $250 million in presidential drawdown authority remaining, the Pentagon is catering to Ukraine’s need for more artillery rather than air defense systems such as Stinger missiles, the Pentagon said May 6.

“We’re focused on providing the Ukrainians in these recent weeks artillery, long range fires,” Kirby said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.

Kirby said Russia continues to strike Ukraine from the air, though Russian pilots maintain “risk aversion,” choosing to fly the majority of their missions and fire from inside Russian territory. Kirby would not rule out Ukraine’s use of short-range air defenses in Donbas, but he underscored that the type of assistance has changed.

“The gun battles are real, and they’re happening every day from both sides,” Kirby said. “What the Donbas requires are the kinds of capabilities we’re focused on providing the Ukrainians.”

Recent defense assistance has included armored personnel carriers, howitzers, and 155 mm rounds.

The 7th Army Training Command in Grafenwoehr, Germany, hopes to train Ukrainians on site, and its commander said May 4 that “observers” such as UASs are being used to improve targeting of Russians.

“We are training them on how to use observers, whether they are air-based, or ground-based, or are any other observers, into what they’re doing,” unit commander Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Hilbert told journalists in a telephone briefing.

But the focus on UASs in Ukraine is clear from the manifests of weapons moving quickly to the Ukraine front line.

LaPlante said the April 1 Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative worth $300 million had so for yielded $136.8 million in contracts, including $19.7 million for Puma and $17.8 million for Switchblade UAS systems. DOD has promised some 700 Switchblades to Ukraine, of which about 100 have been delivered.

The biggest-ticket items, however, are communication devices worth $61.4 million and advanced precision kill weapon systems worth $22.6 million, LaPlante said.

Initially slow, the defense production line for some items to support the Ukraine war effort are now “hot,” he added.

“We are in contact with industry every day as our requirements evolve,” said LaPlante, who held a binder with more than 300 proposals from industry offering solutions to quickly deliver weapons to Ukraine. “This is pretty unprecedented, the amount of munitions that are being used right now in the last month.”

The Defense Logistics Agency’s request for information published April 22 calls on the defense industry to help “accelerate production and build more capacity.”

In the meantime, U.S. unmanned aerial systems are filling niche needs. “There are lots of UAS systems, and each UAS system does something slightly different,” LaPlante said.

Training courses for Ukrainians wrapped up in recent days as the U.S. continued to deliver American weapon systems that differ from the Soviet-made systems they are used to. As of May 6, more than 220 Ukrainian soldiers had been trained for the M777 howitzer, with another 150 in training. Some 15 soldiers had trained on the MPQ-64 Sentinel mobile air defense radar, and 60 soldiers had trained in the M113 armored personnel carriers, with 50 more soldiers in training.

In recent days, lawmakers have expressed concern that U.S. stocks of Javelin anti-tank weapons and Stinger air defense systems are running out with industrial production capacity lagging behind. LaPlante said the first check has been cut to replace the U.S. munitions, with $3.5 billion set aside from a March 15 supplemental bill. Another $5.4 billion as part of President Joe Biden’s proposed $33.5 billion supplemental bill is now before Congress.

LaPlante said the idea is to replace those items one for one, but evaluations are being made for how to replace older models that are no longer in production.

“It’s one for one to the best you can do or the equivalent of that,” he said.

“The situation that we find ourselves in is a situation that unfortunately happens periodically,” LaPlante added. “All of a sudden, we find our production lines have to be boosted up.”

New Brown and Blue Books: Air Force Releases Updates to Foundational Documents

May 6, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Two of the Air Force’s foundational documents received updates May 6, as the service released new versions of its Blue and Brown Books—“The Profession of Arms: Our Core Values” and “The Enlisted Force Structure,” respectively.

The release of the new texts, which lay down many of the core concepts that shape and define the Air Force, comes as the service faces a pivotal moment, transitioning away from conflict in the Middle East to competition with great powers like China and Russia—a change senior leaders say brings massive stakes that will require some fundamental changes.

As the Air Force looks to its future, it must also revisit some “foundational things that every Airman [needs] to know,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass told Air Force Magazine.

“In order for us to have talented Airmen that we need in the Air Force of 2030, we can’t just … walk through the motions and haphazardly get after stuff and update as needed,” Bass told Air Force Magazine. “We need to be deliberate about every single thing that we’re doing.”

She added, “There were some foundational things that we have to get back to, in my mind, the basics … And in the same sense, there is a lot of aspiration and futures and design-thinking and talk in this document that will help us get after our Air Force really being forward-thinking for the long game.”

The new Books are available now online, and according to a Facebook post from Bass, physical copies are being ordered for all new accessions, professional military education centers, and combat aviation advisors. Commands will also receive details on how to get hard copies, Bass added.

Blue

In the mid 1990s, the Air Force was struggling “in the wake of several … ethical and moral challenges.” In 1994, a pair of F-15s shot down two Army helicopters in a tragic case of friendly fire, killing 26 service members and civilians. A little over a month later, there was a highly publicized fatal B-52 crash partially blamed on leadership failing to discipline a reckless pilot. Readiness seemed to be in decline, raising fears of a “hollow force.”

Looking to revitalize the force, Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman turned to Gen. Billy J. Boles, head of Air Education and Training Command. Together, they identified and codified three core values—integrity, service, and excellence. Those values, and the principles behind them, formed the basis for a slim pamphlet distributed throughout the force that came to be known as the “Little Blue Book.”

The Little Blue Book is itself an evolution of Air Force Regulation 30-1, “Air Force Standards,” released in 1983. And as the years passed, the book has continued to evolve, ranging from more than 35 pages to less than 15.

The 2022 Blue Book is 16 pages and shares certain fundamentals with previous versions, including the Airman’s Creed, the Code of Conduct, and the Air Force Oaths. It also shares the same core values: Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence In All We Do.

There are, however, several tweaks. Included in the new version is a paragraph in the introduction reiterating that Airmen have a responsibility to not engage in or tolerate “harassment, sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, bullying, extremism, and discrimination,” as they run contrary to the core values.

This addition is in line with one of the recommendations from the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military that was accepted by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.

The new Blue Book also adds a section under the core value of Integrity First, highlighting the importance of humility.

“A person of integrity grasps and is sobered by the extraordinary task of defending the Constitution of the United States,” the new paragraph reads. “We practice humility by putting others before ourselves. We seek to add value through community and humanitarian support. We serve with gratitude and without arrogance.”

The revision also includes a new section detailing four reasons why the core values are articulated and recognized:

Tell us the price of admission to the Air Force itself;
Point to what is universal and unchanging in the Profession of Arms;
Help us get a fix on the ethical climate of an organization;
Serve as beacons vectoring us back to the path of professional conduct.

The new Blue Book closes with the Air Force’s new mission statement, released in 2021: “To fly, fight, and win … Air power anytime, anywhere.”

Gone from this update is a section included in the 2015 version titled “Respect.” However, references to respect are scattered throughout the document, including an expanded section under “Service Before Self.” All told, the word “respect” is used 26 times, compared to 15 times in the 2015 version.

Brown

For years now, alongside the Little Blue Book has been the Little Brown Book, or as it is formally known, Air Force Instruction 36-2618, “The Enlisted Force Structure.” Distributed to Airmen at Basic Military Training, the handbook spells out the “professional standards and roles and responsibilities for each enlisted rank,” laying down the structure that governs more than 265,000 enlisted Airmen.

The new Brown Book is 28 pages, and like the new Blue Book, shares some similarities with its predecessors, including a description of the expectations and duties for each rank and enlisted tier—junior Airmen, noncommissioned officers, and senior noncommissioned officers.

It also carries over descriptions of specific enlisted positions like First Sergeant, Senior Enlisted Leader, and Career Field Manager, and breaks down “career-broadening opportunities” like recruiter, AFROTC Training Instructor, Professional Military Education instructor and Curriculum Developer, and Airmen Development Advisors.

However, the new Brown Book includes expanded sections detailing the Air Force’s core missions, the Air Force Speciality Codes, and the concept of multi-capable Airmen—a key part of the Air Force’s new Agile Combat Employment Concept.

The update also links back to the Blue Book by including the Airman’s Creed, the oath of enlistment, and the core values. It too emphasizes that all Airmen have a responsibility to help foster “a culture of respect and trust,” and adds sections on teamwork, leadership, and “followership.”

The publication also includes a new chapter dedicated to the Air Force’s 24 foundational competencies and 10 Airman Leadership Qualities, which will form the basis for the service’s feedback, evaluation, and development.

The ALQs, in particular, “represent the performance characteristics we want to define, develop, incentivize, and measure in our Airmen,” Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, said in a recent Air Force release.

They include job proficiency, initiative, adaptability, inclusion and teamwork, emotional intelligence, communication, stewardship, accountability, decision making, and innovation, and including them in the document that defines the DNA of the enlisted force is a natural fit. But it’s not just enlisted Airmen who will need to study the ALQs.

“I think I’m as equally excited as you are with this synergy idea, this idea that when we evaluate Airmen, we’re going to use these things that [Chief of Staff] Gen. [Charles Q.] Brown helped us coin as Airmen Leadership Qualities,” Kelly told Bass during a virtual Coffee Talk in June 2021. “Not officer leadership qualities, not enlisted leadership qualities, they’re Airmen Leadership Qualities. … Those were developed both from our Air Force foundational competencies that our Air Education and Training Command produces, but also with an eye towards the future.”

Purple

As Air Force leaders continue to push for modernization across the force, Bass has been vocal in her belief that that push can’t just be about equipment.

“While our pacing threats might be modernizing pretty fast, the one competitive advantage that we have that nobody else has is our people,” Bass said. “And that is what consistently makes us the best, and we can’t take that for granted. We’ve got to continue to hone in on that, capitalize on that, modernize some of our pieces and processes that might not otherwise allow us to keep the best talent in our Air Force.”

In support of that goal, the new Blue and Brown Books are just the latest development. Two weeks ago, the Air Force released “The Blueprint,” a 32-page “living” document intended to be a resource and reference for enlisted Airmen throughout their careers, presenting essential information on everything from Air Force Specialty Codes to different programs Airmen can tap into when leaving the service.

Bass calls it a “cradle-to-grave blueprint on an Airman’s career,” noting its also an objective under the Enlisted Force Development Action Plan. Having all these new documents, intended to be foundational and released in close succession, is all part of the plan.

“We’ve got to think about the long game, and we have to play the long game,” Bass said. “And if we’re going to tap the Airmen that we need, whether it’s 2030, 2035, 2040, it has to be deliberate. Because it’s just not gonna happen any other way, unless we really have some strategy and we really get after the action piece on focusing on and synergizing all the different great efforts that we’re doing to develop our Airmen of today.”

There’s still one more foundational document to come—the “Purple Book.” As detailed in the Action Plan, the Purple Book will include “values, capabilities, and warfighting concepts of the Joint Force team and [connect] Air Force doctrine to the Department of Defense purpose and mission.”

The Air Force’s push to tie itself more deeply to the Joint Force has been underway for years now—the vision of a tightly integrated joint force was perhaps the defining legacy of former Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein. And the Purple Book, targeted for release this summer, will look to identify, codify, and develop the different ways Airmen can further that goal.

“Our team will work with the J7 [joint force development] to help develop a Purple Book that will be focused on how do we develop the joint leaders that we need, that are able to talk joint, train joint, and to some degree, understand and integrate more and have the synergies that we need with our brothers and sisters from the other services,” Bass said.