Pentagon: Russian Bombardment of Kyiv Continues Even as Some Troops Start to Withdraw

March 30, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A day after announcing it would cut back on military operations toward the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Russia had repositioned about 20 percent of its forces around the city.

Defense Department Press Secretary John F. Kirby offered the latest assessment during a press briefing March 30, warning that even with that movement, the Ukrainian capital remained at risk as Russia’s invasion of the country continued into its second month.

“Kyiv is still being attacked by bombardment: artillery fire as well as airstrikes. A majority of the forces that Mr. Putin put around Kyiv are still there,” Kirby said. “Now, as I said a couple of days ago, they’re largely in defensive positions. We several days ago stopped seeing any advancement on their part. They weren’t moving closer to the city. From a ground effort, there was no more advancing on Kyiv, but the airstrikes have not stopped, not at all.”

None of the Russian troops who have begun to leave, Kirby added, have returned to their “home garrisons” in Russia. Instead, some are still in Ukraine, and others have gone north into Belarus. From there, Kirby warned, they will likely be deployed again.

“We’re seeing units go, so it’s our assessment that they are also bringing much of their equipment with them … we believe for refit and repurposing for future operations inside Ukraine,” Kirby said.

Kirby’s comments echo those made by senior U.S. officials in the past few days in response to Russia’s supposed withdrawal from Kyiv. President Joe Biden told reporters March 29 that “I don’t read anything into it until I see what their actions are,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested the statement could be a ploy.

Still, Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, head of U.S. European Command, did confirm to members of the Senate on March 29 that “the shifting dynamics on the ground domain in the vicinity of Kyiv are exactly what we see from a EUCOM perspective.”

Intelligence Assessments

During his latest press briefing, Kirby also confirmed reports that U.S. intelligence has determined Russian President Vladimir Putin has been misinformed by his advisers about his military’s poor performance in Ukraine.

“We would concur with the conclusion that Mr. Putin has not been fully informed by his Ministry of Defense at every turn over the last month,” Kirby said. “Now, I want to caveat that: We don’t have access to every bit of information that he’s been given or every conversation that he’s had, and I’m going to be very careful here not getting into too much more detail on this. But we have seen these press reports attributed to a U.S. official, and we would concur with the basic finding.”

U.S. intelligence has repeatedly been at the forefront of the response to the conflict. The Pentagon sought to expose Russian activities and plans in the run-up to the invasion by publicly releasing information, and the White House reportedly modified rules so that agencies could share information and data with the Ukrainians once the invasion began.

At the same time, lawmakers have raised concerns that U.S. intelligence may have erred in overestimating the Russian armed forces. At the outset of the conflict, reports indicated fears that Kyiv would fall in days or weeks instead of putting up the fierce resistance that has materialized.

Asked by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing if the unexpected turn of events indicated a gap in U.S. intelligence, Wolters acknowledged that there “could be.”

A day later, in front of the House Armed Services Committee, Wolters repeated that assessment.

“There could be a gap. And I think what we owe our citizens is, once we get into a post-conflict environment, is to go back and examine that very issue, to make sure if there is in fact a gap, we rectify it,” Wolters told Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). “But at this point, I agree with you that there was a degree of miscalculation, and it’s evidenced by the performance of the Russian military up to this point. And I think we need to be prepared to take a really good look at it.”

At the same time, Wolters acknowledged that trying to gather intelligence on Russia’s plans remains a daunting task.

“Just to be fair … the world of a 21st-century intel officer is very difficult. I often ask our intel professionals, ‘What is so and so thinking?’ And as we all know, a threat is defined as capability and intent, and part of that intent is what one human being is thinking,” Wolters said. “And given the structure of how Russia operates, it’s very difficult to determine where President Putin’s head was the entire time.”

Asked about Wolters’ comments, Kirby indicated there wouldn’t be a formal after-action review of the situation because the U.S. was not directly involved in the conflict, but he did say informal discussions were likely to take place. At the same time, Kirby pushed back on the notion that Ukrainian resistance was unexpected.

“Let’s not forget the training and the support that we have been giving the Ukrainians for the last eight years as they’ve been engaged in a hot war in the Donbas,” said Kirby. “And it’s not just us. The Brits, the Canadians, and other nations in Europe have also lent training support to the Ukrainians. So their success on the field of battle is not an accident. It’s the result of a lot of hard work over the last eight years.”

Air Force’s Budget Invests in ‘Balance’—Space Force’s in ‘Resiliency,’ Planners Say in AFA Talk

March 30, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Department of the Air Force needs its largest research and development budget ever in the face of threats from China and Russia, the lead Air Force and Space Force budget planners said.

Air Force Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom and Space Force Lt. Gen. William J. Liquori joined Air Force Association president retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright in a video discussion March 30—in the wake of the March 28 defense budget release—to make their case for sacrificing combat power now to meet Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives, including a call to “transition to a wartime posture against a peer competitor.”

“We’ve got to be able to evolve to more resilient architecture and be able to protect the things that we have out there today,” said Liquori, the Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations, strategy, plans, programs, requirements, and analysis, in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.

Lt. Gen. David Nahom, Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, USAF; and Lt. Gen. William Liquori, Deputy Chief of Space Operations, Strategy, Plans, Programs, Requirements, and Analysis, USSF, join AFA President Bruce Wright in this episode of Air & Space Warfighters in Action.

Changing missile threats, particularly maneuverable reentry vehicles and hypersonic missiles, drove the decisions to devote $3.48 billion to the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) radar and $1.03 billion to resilient missile warning/missile tracking. Overall, the Space Force’s budget proposal to Congress gives $15.8 billion to research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).

The Space Force budget planner said the shift will lead to a hybrid architecture of satellites, a design concept reached after running thousands of simulations.

“In the case of missile warning/missile tracking, they took a look at hundreds of different architectural combinations, and for each one of those combinations, they ran thousands of runs on their computer systems to be able to see which ones performed the best,” Liquori said.

“If all we did was continue to field the systems that we have, we would lack resiliency,” Liquori said, explaining that current capabilities were put on orbit when space was a benign environment.

Resiliency achieved with a new architecture meets the threat posed by adversaries China and Russia, which maintain anti-satellite weapons that can operate from Earth and in space.

“If all we focus on is the here and now, we will never evolve to where we need to be and where we see the adversary evolving,” he said.

The Air Force slates $33.4 billion for RDT&E, fully 25 percent of the service’s budget.

Nahom, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said his one-word answer to the question of investment versus near-term capability was: “balance.”

The Air Force budget planner pointed to the current Air Force effort to reassure NATO allies on the eastern flank as an example of how the Air Force has the capacity to cope with current threats.

“The Air Force is there, not to mention the Middle East, the Pacific Rim, and all around the world,” he said.

“We have to make sure that our Airmen have the current capacity they need to meet combat commanders’ need,” he added. “The RDT&E is so critical that we look to the future, and we look for what is out there and technology that can meet emerging threats.”

Nahom explained that the emerging need for the Air Force will be to contend with the long distances and ranges of the Pacific theater. The Air Force has been faulted for not buying enough F-35s in the current budget.

“We’ve been designing fighters for years [with] the European theater ranges in mind, from World War II right up to and including the F-35,” he said. “As we look at the future investment, we’ve got to account for going to greater distances, and potentially loitering longer with greater weapons loads. And certainly, we’re making adjustments to that.”

NATO Commander Increases Prediction to 550 F-35s in Europe by 2030

March 30, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

F-35s in Eastern Europe have been performing some “elegant” intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions as part of the NATO response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of U.S. European Command told lawmakers March 30—and he expects the fighter’s presence on the continent to expand dramatically by the end of the decade, exceeding earlier predictions.

Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, who also serves as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, added to members of the House Armed Services Committee that getting more F-35s delivered to Europe, either as part of the U.S. Air Force or for other nations, is “critical.”

“They’ll deliver a tremendous improvement in our strategic ability, in indications and warnings, command and control, and mission command, as already demonstrated by U.S. F-35s that are contributing in the assure and deter mission at this time,” Wolters said.

In mid-February, just before the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the U.S. deployed F-35s from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, to Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, to enhance NATO’s defense posture. Those jets were later sent to Romania and Poland to bolster the eastern flank, arriving on Feb. 24.

At the time, U.S. Air Forces in Europe said six of the fifth-generation fighters were being deployed. More than a month later, Wolters told Congress that four are still being used in the region, to great effect.

“The U.S. F-35As, the four that we have right now, are in use, and they’ve been very effective doing some elegant ISR activities. And it just reveals to us how much greater capability we’re going to have once we get our full fleet on board,” Wolters said.

USAF has deployed more F-15s and F-16s to Eastern Europe during this crisis, but the performance of the F-35s is being closely watched by many—Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said their success could go a long way in building his confidence in the program.

Wolters declined more discussion on the importance of the F-35’s capabilities in Europe to a classified setting on March 30, but it appears more and more likely that the fighter will play a key role in the continent’s future defense.

In June 2021, Wolters predicted during an Atlantic Council discussion that by 2030, there could be 450 F-35s in Europe. Since then, Finland and Germany have said they will buy the fighter as well, joining the U.S., Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the U.K., and Switzerland as European nations and partners who have either started fielding the F-35 or have plans to do so.

The response to Russian aggression has helped to drive that demand, and Wolters told the HASC that he was upping his prediction.

“The disposition of the NATO nations with respect to the F-35 is dramatically growing,” Wolters said. “And our hope is, we have 100 on the continent right now, and we anticipate in 2030, growing to 550, and that’s a good fleet.”

MiG-29s Raised Again

While Wolters touted the capabilities that the F-35 has been able to offer during the recent crisis, he sounded less optimistic when it came to an issue that several representatives raised—the transfer of Soviet MiG-29s from Poland to Ukraine, using the U.S. as an intermediary.

The idea, put forward by Poland several weeks ago, was quickly shot down by the Pentagon, which said it didn’t consider the proposal “tenable.”

Since then, however, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has pushed for the transfer, which Ukraine has asked for.

The issue was raised once more by both Republicans and Democrats on the congressional panel, and Wolters reiterated that his best military advice has been for the U.S. not to send any jets to Ukraine.

“It goes back to the military mission effectiveness weighed against strategic miscalculation, to make sure you take into account the protection of the citizens of Ukraine, as well as the citizens on the periphery. So all those variables have to come into play,” Wolters said.

Boeing Scales Up Capacity to Build Small Satellites at Calif. Factory

March 30, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Boeing unveiled its new “high-throughput” factory-within-a-factory for small satellites March 30. From a 30,000-square-foot section of its space manufacturing hub in El Segundo, Calif., the company expects to build entire constellations of small sats that span the altitudes.

Staff from Boeing’s subsidiary Millennium Space Systems will operate the new production line, according to a statement announcing the new factory floor. The subsidiary will also contribute aspects including “agility and rapid prototyping.”

The opening exemplifies how the company is “scaling and growing to fulfill our customers’ vision for multi-orbit constellations with demand across markets and mission sets,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch, in the statement.

Boeing intends to do “virtually every aspect of satellite manufacturing” in the new area. It says Millennium Space Systems has experience in environmental testing of small sats and that it will have access to Boeing’s testing facilities that have qualified more than 300 satellites for spaceflight.

In-house production may have brought down, by almost half, the price of 42 satellites in the Space Development Agency’s recently awarded data transport layer of its planned National Defense Space Architecture. According to SpaceNews, SDA’s technical director told the audience at a space industry conference that York Space Systems’ much-lower $382 million bid likely compares so favorably to those of its fellow awardees Lockheed Martin ($700 million) and Northrop Grumman ($692 million) because those two companies are actually buying the satellites from other providers, whereas York is building the satellites itself.

Private companies, governments, and institutions added more than 1,400 satellites to orbit in 2021 alone, the most ever in a year, and around the world, entities continue to announce plans to launch constellations in the hundreds or thousands.

That growth has built up over the past few years, reflected in the global economy to the tune of $447 billion in 2020, according to the Space Foundation—the first year new satellites crossed the 1,000 mark and U.S. military spending on space reached $26.6 billion.

Air Force ‘Would Buy More F-35s’ if Resources Allowed, Plans and Programs Chief Says

March 29, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Budget compromises driven by the need to modernize two-thirds of the nuclear triad forced Air Force leaders to cut planned purchases of F-35s in 2023 to just 33—15 fewer than it bought in fiscal 2022 and 27 fewer than 2021, said Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, the service’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.

The Air Force’s $169.5 billion budget plan, released March 28, opted to slow down F-35 purchases while accelerating acquisition of the F-15EX. The necessity to pay for billions in nuclear modernization meant something had to give, and with upgrades pending to the F-35, the service reduced the F-35 buy in 2023 from 48 to 33 in favor of a purchase of 24 F-15EX aircraft. Nahom said the tough choice was in part due to the required stealth to meet the current threat.

“Would we have bought more F-35s if we had more resources? Yes, absolutely,” Nahom told Air Force Magazine in a Pentagon interview.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said March 25 that holding back some purchases while waiting for Block 4 upgrades will deliver a more capable airplane without the added cost of retrofits later. Expanding on that thought, Nahom said that when the F-35 was developed 20 years ago, there was a “different threat” than exists today in modern air defenses developed by China and Russia.

“The threat says we’ve got to get to the [future] capability,” he said. “In a perfect world, would I like the capability and a lot more F-35s—and EXs? Absolutely. But, right now we’ve got to concentrate on making sure we get the F-35 we need. We continue the development, and then we buy as many as we can.”

Nahom said the Air Force must rapidly retire worn-out F-15Cs in favor of new F-15EX aircraft and that although that airplane lacks the F-35’s stealth, it has advantages: It can carry large external weapons, more weapons overall, and more fuel, meaning it can travel farther.

“We have not backed off our investment in the F-35,” he said. “As the threat has evolved, the systems that we need to put on the F-35 have evolved.” And investment in that capability continues.

Other hard choices include retiring 15 E-3 AWACS and 33 F-22 Raptor jets. AWACS capability is important, but similar capabilities are available from NATO, Britain, Japan, and Australia. The F-22s that would be retired are older Block 20 models now used for training, which no longer match up well with the combat fleet, forcing new pilots to relearn things once they get to combat units. Upgrading those, he said, would not be worth the cost, given other priorities facing the service.

The Air Force is obligated to fund nuclear modernization to the tune of $3.6 billion for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) to replace the 50-year-old Minuteman III; $3.25 billion for the B-21 bomber; and $929 million for the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon.

“We’ve been talking for years about what a nuclear [modernization] bow wave is going to look like,” Nahom said. “Well, it’s here. It’s not just RDT&E money anymore—it’s procurement of the nuclear articles.”

Upgrading two-thirds of the nation’s nuclear triad is an Air Force duty for which there is no alternative.

With the budget now delivered to Congress, lawmakers could add additional F-35s as a plus-up, or demand other cuts. In the coming weeks, each service will deliver lists of unfunded priorities to Congress. USAF has sought additional F-35s in the past but did not last year. Given the numerous international partners waiting in line for new F-35 aircraft, the impact of the Air Force’s decision falls more on the Air Force itself than on prime contractor Lockheed Martin and its suppliers.

Nahom said he is confident the Air Force budget choices were the best under the circumstances.

“Air dominance—air superiority—is the American way of war,” he said. “Our joint force assumes we have it.

“The only people that are going to give them air superiority is the U.S. Air Force. That’s what we do,” he said. “And as warfare changes, especially when you look at what a conflict would be like in the South China Sea, we’re going to have to continue to evolve.”

Nahom and Space Force strategy chief Lt. Gen. William J. Liquori will speak with AFA President retired Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright during a virtual Air & Space Warfighters in Action event March 30. Register here.

With Troops Facing Squeeze from Inflation, Pentagon Budget Bumps Up Pay, BAH, BAS, and More

March 29, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Defense Department’s $773 billion fiscal 2023 budget request contains a 4.6 percent pay raise for service members and DOD civilians, a figure touted by officials during the March 28 rollout as the largest increase for troops in 20 years. But at the same time, a new program included in the budget is aimed at helping service members living near the poverty line, highlighting concerns about the effects inflation is having on the rank and file.

“How we take a look at inflation and the pressures that it puts on our service members are front and center to everything we do,” Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher W. Grady told reporters. “We look at everything from child care to food insecurity, and certainly inflation can put a pressure on that. It can put pressure on the budget for sure, but it can put a pressure on our people. So staying in tune to the needs of the center of our universe, our people, that Total Force, is absolutely central to building an enduring advantage.”

In the private sector, data has already shown that soaring inflation, especially for things such as housing, food, and gas, has blunted the benefits of increased wages for many. Looking to address those issues, the 2023 budget request also includes an average bump of 4.2 percent for the Basic Allowance for Housing and 3.4 percent for Basic Allowance for Subsistence.

The average home price went up 17 percent in 2021, and rent prices went up 10.1 percent. Food prices are up some 7 percent as of late.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks noted that the rate of inflation could change before the 2023 fiscal year begins in October or by the time it ends in 18 months. Still, the Pentagon is looking to address the underlying issue of economic insecurity for service members through a new account called the Basic Needs Allowance, officials said.

Exact details for how the account will be paid out are still being finalized, USAF budget director Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III told reporters. But service members will have to apply for the program, Peccia said, with the exact amount they received based off a “long equation.”

“Essentially, if a person’s pay did not exceed the amount that is equal to 130 percent of the federal poverty guidelines of the Department of Health and Human Services, then [the payment will] be equal to 1/12 of the difference between 130 percent of that federal poverty guideline and the gross household income,” Peccia said. “So that’s why I say, you know, every case will be different. We’ll have to take a look at every Airman and every Guardian and their needs.”

Since details are still being worked out, the service isn’t quite sure how much money it will need to dedicate to the program, Peccia added, saying it needs a “year or two to get it under our feet to figure it out.”

“We added $300,000 in there to address any economic insecurities for younger members who might be having financial problems—$300,000 is what was put in the budget. We don’t know what the requirement will truly be,” Peccia said. “Whatever it is, we will pay when we get to the year of execution, but that’s what was put in the budget to start the fund.”

In addition to the new account, the DOD’s budget overview also indicated that it would contain an increase in the cap for child care fee assistance from $1,500 per month to $1,700. The most recent data from 2020 indicates that child care costs have risen faster than inflation.

“[Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III] is very focused on economic security for service members,” Hicks said, citing the various increases in funding in the budget. “So those are all areas that we have put investments in this year. I mentioned child care and a few others you’ll see, all of which are going to be helpful in terms of resiliency around issues of inflation.”

End Strength Adjustments

While wages and benefits are set to increase for service members in the 2023 budget request, the Pentagon is asking to cut its overall end strength. The Army will see the biggest reduction, backing off its ambition to have 485,000 Active-duty Soldiers, a figure funded in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, and asking instead for an end strength of 473,000 in 2023.

The Air Force, which is currently authorized for 329,220 Active-duty Airmen, is requesting an Active-duty end strength of 323,400—a decline of roughly 1.8 percent, which Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall linked to the department’s efforts to retire 250 aircraft.

“We’re basically taking some end strength out associated with the divestments,” Kendall said.

According to the Air Force Personnel Center, there are 329,597 Active-duty Airmen as of Feb. 28.

The Space Force, meanwhile, is slated to grow by around 2.4 percent, going from 8,400 service members to 8,600.

“Part of that is for transfers from the Space Development Agency, and part of that is inter-service transfers, where members from other services, on the officer side anyway, will relinquish their commission from that service and be re-commissioned into the Space Force,” Peccia said.

New War Strategies Could Renew Emphasis on Intra-Theater Airlift

March 29, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The military’s capacity to move people and objects around within single geographic combatant commands may have taken a back seat to other “mobility priorities” in recent years, but the commander of U.S. Transportation Command now sees intra-theater airlift as an “area of increased interest.”

Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost presented testimony about her command’s posture to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 29.

“From a requirements perspective, intra-theater airlift has experienced some of the greatest change of all mobility priorities over the past few decades,” Van Ovost said in prepared testimony. She referred to C-130 fleet capacity, in particular, having fallen by about half “from a high of well over 500 aircraft” during Operation Desert Storm.

She attributed the dwindling focus on intra-theater airlift to the military’s having done away with “a ‘two major war’ sizing construct, as well as de-emphasis of other high priority global missions not associated with a major contingency as a force-sizing demand.”

Yet the classified Mobility Capability Requirements Study directed in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act “highlighted the potential value of this mission area in the future operating environment,” Van Ovost said.

The study took into account new intelligence and emerging concepts “in contested environment scenarios,” according to a statement issued by the command in July 2021 after the study’s completion. “We also assessed our adversaries’ capabilities and intent,” said Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, Van Ovost’s predecessor, in the statement. “We’ve advanced significantly in our analytic framework.”

In her prepared testimony, Van Ovost referred to a “complex new security environment” that will challenge the command’s “ability to deliver a decisive force for high-end conflict when needed.”

“The contested environment will present challenges that degrade our ability to exercise command and control of our forces, delay integration of our commercial partners in a timely manner, and disrupt the steady tempo of mobility operations,” Van Ovost said.

In reply to a question from SASC chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) about mobility aircraft becoming long-range targets, Van Ovost said that in regions such as the Indo-Pacific and Europe, the command is taking the approach of “diverse and disperse.”

“We are seeing that we’re going to have more distributed operations in more locations, which will provide us that redundancy and resilience,” Van Ovost said. “So we are very much looking at how we do intra-theater disbursement at a time and place where we’ll be able to resupply the forces securely but keep it moving so they don’t become targets in the future.”

To address intra-theater airlift, TRANSCOM expects to publish results by this summer of ongoing research into “emerging warfighting concepts and future operating scenarios to evaluate mobility capacity along with other related variables.”

One future warfighting concept the study may take into account is the idea of cargo and refueling aircraft pitching in as bombers, such as in experiments in which cargo aircraft drop palletized munitions. While she was still commander of Air Mobility Command in 2021, Van Ovost said in a discussion with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that mobility aircraft could “be a maneuver force inside the threat ring.”

EUCOM Boss: ‘My Suspicion is We’re Going to Need More’ US Troops in Europe Long-Term

March 29, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The head of U.S. European Command predicted that more American troops will need to be stationed on the continent in the coming years, even after the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine ends.

Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 29, didn’t say how many more troops would be needed in Europe, or whether they should be permanently stationed or continuously rotated in. But his endorsement of an increased presence comes as the Defense Department seeks to pivot its focus to the Indo-Pacific and China.

“I think what we need to do from a U.S. force perspective is look at what takes place in Europe, following the completion of the Ukraine-Russia scenario, and examine the European contributions and, based off the breadth and depth of the European contributions, be prepared to adjust the U.S. contributions,” Wolters said in response to questions from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) “And my suspicion is we’re going to still need more.”

In addition to commanding EUCOM, Wolters also serves as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe for NATO. And in that role, he has witnessed a dramatic change in European attitudes towards defense in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Germany has pledged to boost its military spending by 100 billion Euros, Italy has indicated it will do the same, and Finland and Sweden are considering joining NATO.

These changes will impact what the U.S. needs to do in the region, Wolters said, especially as other countries pour resources into NATO’s eastern flank.

“What I also examine in my other command hat is the increase of European involvement. And in specific targeting of what we’re doing with respect to the population and capability increase in the Baltics, we’ve seen a dramatic shift as a result of contributions from multiple nations,” Wolters said. “Several had been published in the open press: Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark have all been very, very generous with respect to their recent contributions to the [Enhanced Forward Presence] battlegroups.”

The Enhanced Forward Presence groups, in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland, are deployed on a rotational basis. But increasingly, those nations and others in Eastern Europe have clamored for a permanent U.S. military presence—Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis all have indicated a willingness to host more troops in the past few months.

“Obviously there’s always a mix between the requirement of permanent versus rotational and there are pluses and minuses of each one,” Wolters told lawmakers. “We’ll have to continue to examine the European contributions to make a smart decision about where to go in the future.”

Pressed further by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as to how he would balance the need for more troops in Europe with increased demands in the Indo-Pacific and whether that impacts the need for permanent presences or rotations, Wolters said that it depends.

“As we’ve seen what has unfolded in Ukraine with respect to Russia, it’s allowed us the opportunity to take a look at the whole of government, multi-domain force and examine what shifts we could possibly make in the future,” Wolters said. “From a NATO perspective, … those contributions that those allies and partners have committed impacts the appropriate effect that we could deliver, which goes all the way back to, how smart we need to be with respect to making the right decision given global ramifications on permanent versus rotational.”

Wolters’ projection of more troops comes just a few weeks after Mara Karlin, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities, told the House Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon was overhauling its Global Posture Review in light of the Russian invasion to consider adding more troops, either on a permanent or rotational basis, in Eastern Europe.

Wolters isn’t the first head of EUCOM to make the case for an increase presence; His predecessor, Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, told Congress in 2017 that he needed more forces in the region to modernize and counter Russia.

Like Wolters, Scaparrotti said there were benefits and drawbacks to both a permanent presence or rotations. At the time he made his comments, though, he was overseeing a region with a far smaller presence than Wolters currently has—Wolters told Congress the number of American troops in Europe has swelled from 60,000 to roughly 100,000 as of March 24.

Whether that presence will continue to grow in the short-term remains to be seen, Wolters told Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

“We take a conditions-based approach, and we look at the issues second by second, minute by minute. I would just tell you that based off the dynamic environment that exists today, that number could change,” Wolters said. “I suspect that it probably will, and in which direction will be determined based off conditions in the environment.”

That dynamic environment was highlighted as Wicker asked Wolters about recent reports that Russia has pledged to scale-back operations near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as its focus has shifted to the eastern part of the country.

Those shifts “are exactly what we see from a EUCOM perspective,” Wolters confirmed.

Broken ARRW: Hypersonics Program Faces Uncertain Future after 2023

March 28, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon may be running out of chances to prove its worth.

The service’s 2023 budget request does not include any procurement funds for the troubled hypersonics program, and though officials said they remain committed to the program in 2023, its future is less certain.

“[We’re] not walking away. It’s funded in FY 23,” Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III, deputy assistant secretary for budget, told reporters. “And then we’ll make an assessment after that.”

ARRW has hit a number of setbacks recently, failing three booster flight tests in 2021—failing to leave the pylon in April, separating but failing to fire its booster in July, and once again not separating from the plane in December.

Those failures led to Congress stripping out the planned procurement of 12 ARRW missiles in the 2022 budget; the Air Force had asked for $160 million on the assumption that the tests would go smoothly, paving the way for the missile to rapidly enter service.

There is no plan to restore that procurement in 2023.

“There are no procurement quantities for ARRW in this budget,” Peccia. “There’s actually a … sliver of procurement for ARRW this year, but we expect to do a reprogramming with the Hill to move that into RDT&E, so there won’t be any procurement for ARRW in ‘23.”

Instead, the budget funds $577 million in research, development, test, and evaluation for the department’s hypersonic programs, which includes both ARRW and the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile. That marks a substantial increase from the $438 million requested in 2022, but those funds aren’t split evenly between the two.

“We increased funding for hypersonic weapons, for the ARRW and the HACM program, and primarily the increase lies within the HACM, the hypersonic cruise missile,” Peccia said.

HACM has received less funding than ARRW in the past, only really emerging as one of the Air Force’s top hypersonic efforts in the fall of 2020—it started receiving RDT&E funding as its own line item in fiscal 2022.

But in the March 28 budget rollout, officials highlighted HACM as a key line of effort for the Air Force’s hypersonic efforts.

“I think when it comes to hypersonic weapons, we’ve got to have the right mix, and so we’re committed not only to ARRW [but] as well as to HACM, and that’s why you see RDT&E funding for both of those,” Air Force Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones said.

The Air Force’s budget overview documents did not specify how much of the $577 million requested is intended for ARRW, a boost-glide weapon that is fired into the atmosphere and uses the energy from its rocket to fly toward its target, or HACM, which uses air-breathing engine technology for propulsion.

In providing an overview of the entire Defense Department’s hypersonic efforts, Vice Adm. Ronald A. Boxall, director of force structure, resources, and assessment for the Joint Staff, said the Air Force plans to field HACM by fiscal 2027, but he made no mention of when ARRW might enter service.

“This budget completes prototyping of the Air Force Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, ARRW, and fields the Hypersonic [Attack] Cruise Missile, HACM, on the F-15 in 2027,” Boxall said.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently has cautioned against placing too much emphasis on hypersonic weapons simply to match China’s focus in the area. Instead, Kendall has hinted that hypersonic weapons may not be “cost-effective,” saying the service will likely only have small quantities of them as a result.

In a February webcast with the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Kendall was noncommittal about whether ARRW’s testing woes could put it on the chopping block.

The ARRW “has had some test problems,” he acknowledged. “That’s not unusual in a development program.” Kendall said the Air Force is still investigating the most recent test failure, and he hopes “that we’re learning from that experience.” But the service will have to “make some decisions about that weapon system, … like everything else,” depending on the results of the investigation.