Missile Warning, Resiliency, and More Transfers Boost the Space Force’s 2023 Budget Prospects by a Lot

March 28, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Force could be in for a big budget boost in fiscal 2023 if the Biden administration’s request for a 36 percent bump has anything to do with it.

The Space Force’s $24.5 billion budget request for 2023 is a $6.5 billion increase over the $18 billion enacted by Congress for fiscal 2022. Accounting, in part, for the increase, the Space Development Agency’s budget becomes part of the Space Force’s for the first time in 2023. A greater emphasis on missile tracking and more interservice troop transfers also factor in.

The additional money will help to achieve Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s No. 1 “operational imperative” for the department of establishing a “resilient and effective space order of battle and architectures.”

The budget request is “a critical first step to combat emerging space threats” and to transition military space activities “from combat support to warfighting,” according to the Department of the Air Force’s overview of its budget request. The amount generally covers weapons and sustainment, education, training, support of the Space Force’s field commands, and carrying out missions, headquarters operations, and the duties of centers for doctrine, intelligence, and professional military education.

While the Space Force’s “indispensable support … underpins all other joint operations,” that support is “insufficient against the pacing challenge,” which is China, said Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones during a Pentagon briefing on the Department of the Air Force’s budget request March 28.

Within the Space Force’s $24.5 billion request, it would get $4 billion for operations and maintenance, including 200 more uniformed Guardians to bring the service’s total to 8,600. The O&M budget also includes the Defense Department’s proposed 4.6 percent pay raises for both military and civilian personnel; and 4.2 percent and 3.4 percent higher allowances for housing and subsistence, respectively. It adds $205 million above fiscal 2022 to fund weapons system sustainment at 83 percent of the requirement, an increase of 4 percent; plus $67 million to elevate six of the service’s space deltas—roughly equivalent to Air Force wings—to be fully mission capable.

The Space Force’s proposed $3.6 billion procurement budget includes three National Security Space Launches plus a launch for the Space Development Agency along with “investments in two follow-on” Global Positioning System satellites, “which will provide new capabilities including a spot beam that provides a 100x anti-jam improvement over current encrypted military code,” according to the overview.

A bigger percentage of the Space Force’s budget would go to research, development, testing, and evaluation than any other service’s at about 65 percent, or $15.8 billion of the Space Force’s request, an increase of $4.5 billion over the fiscal 2022 request. The amount is “to protect and defend current space assets, build more resilient and defendable architectures, and develop offensive capabilities to challenge adversary space capabilities,” according to the overview.

A slide presented March 28 specified $3.5 billion for Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared geosynchronous missile-warning satellites, up $1 billion from fiscal 2022; $566 million for the Evolved Strategic SATCOM and $121 million for the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service programs to resist communication jamming; and $231 million for rapid prototyping of the ground-based Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, or DARC, for space domain awareness.

Jones said during an earlier briefing with members of the press March 25 that space domain awareness, along with missile warning and tracking, contribute to the DOD’s broader goal of “integrated deterrence.”

The new budget request asks for $1.03 billion for a “Resilient Missile Warning/Missile Tracking” program. Air Force Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III, the deputy assistant secretary for budget, would only say March 28 that the “initiative is looking at all orbits.”

The Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture being designed for low Earth orbit accounts for another $987 million for missile warning and tracking in the Space Force’s RDT&E budget along with $461 million for its data transport satellites. Congress added $550 million on top of the SDA’s fiscal 2022 budget request of $936.7 million to speed up its missile tracking layer. SDA officials told reporters March 15 that they estimated SDA’s first batch of 28 infrared missile-tracking satellites would total $2.5 billion and that the satellites could be in orbit by 2025.

Pentagon Requests $773 Billion for 2023, Sends New Defense Strategy to the Hill

March 28, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon’s $773 billion fiscal 2023 budget request, released March 28, is highlighted by inflation, a classified new National Defense Strategy, and a continued focus on China as the pacing challenge while also categorizing Russia as an “acute” threat.

When accounting for inflation, the top line represents a growth of 1.5 percent over the fiscal 2022 appropriations approved just a few weeks ago, Defense Department comptroller Michael J. McCord told reporters. Without inflation, it is a 4 percent increase.

The 2023 request marks a $30.7 billion increase over the $742.3 billion enacted budget for fiscal 2022. But nearly half of that increase—some $14 billion—was attributed to the Pentagon’s need to incorporate “goods and services inflation increase in our buying power,” McCord said. Another $6 billion went to increases in compensation for personnel, including a 4.6 percent pay raise for service members and civilian employees, increases in the Basic Allowance for Housing and Basic Allowance for Subsistence, and a raised minimum wage for contractors.

Still, McCord and other Pentagon officials stressed that concerns about inflation, which has hit record highs in recent months, is difficult to project forward and subject to change.

“We built into this ‘23 budget the best information that we have at the time we built the budget,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks told reporters. “As in any year, we’re going to be working that as we get closer to the reality, and even in execution, we’ll have to work on that.”

The 2023 budget request, McCord said, “is directly informed by the new National Defense Strategy … which in turn, builds on the Secretary’s message to the force and outlines our defense priority.”

The full text of that new NDS is still not public—a classified version was presented to Congress, while an unclassified fact sheet was released along with the budget.

The strategy outlines four defense priorities, nearly all of which can be directly tied to China. They are:

“Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC.
Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners.
Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing
the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.”

McCord outlined three main ways the 2023 request funds the new strategy: integrated deterrence, campaigning, and building enduring advantages.

Integrated Deterrence

Integrated deterrence, which incorporates a broad range of capabilities across domains and locations to deter adversaries, has been a frequent theme of DOD leaders for months now. The 2023 request includes $276 billion for procurement and research and development—the largest-ever such request. This includes $56.5 billion to advance air power, with the procurement of 61 F-35s across the department, of which 33 will be F-35As for the Air Force, 24 F-15EXs, 15 KC-46s, the B-21 bomber, among others. It also includes more than $34 billion for modernization across all three legs of the nuclear triad and $24.7 billion for missile defense.

“The three legs of the nuclear triad provide mutually supporting capabilities, and our investment to modernize the triad will help ensure that nuclear weapons continue to deter aggression and protect our allies and partners,” said Vice Adm. Ronald A. Boxall, director of force structure, resources, and assessment for the Joint Staff.

Also included in integrated deterrence is the Pentagon’s efforts in long-range fires, particularly hypersonic missiles. With $7.2 billion total in funding, the budget calls for the Army to be the first to field a hypersonic missile in 2023, followed by the Navy in 2025.

The Air Force, meanwhile, isn’t scheduled to field a hypersonic cruise missile until fiscal 2027—the 2023 budget completes prototyping for the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, but it doesn’t actually procure any of them, Boxall said.

Campaigning

Campaigning “refers to being intentional about the actions you take in your presence, in your posture, all of the things that you do on a more day-to-day basis, especially in the combatant commands, to achieve your strategic ends,” McCord said.

In the Indo-Pacific, that means prioritizing China, with $6.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Much of that funding goes toward new missile warning and tracking architecture, the defense of Guam, and more training and experimentation in the region, McCord said.

For Europe, campaigning means recognizing Russia as an “acute threat,” a phrase repeated by officials across the budget rollout and a seeming nod to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine. That invasion has sparked a strong response from the U.S. and NATO leaders, and the budget request includes funds to provide assistance to Ukraine as well as more than $5 billion for security cooperation and updated capabilities with allies.

But while the Russia-Ukraine conflict has drawn global attention, its effect on the 2023 budget was limited, McCord claimed.

“We did not feel that what is happening today altered the picture that China is the No. 1 issue to keep our eye on,” McCord said. “Obviously you can draw your own conclusions about Russia’s performance on the battlefield … but … all these documents were pretty much finalized some time ago, so this is not attempting to be a commentary on what’s happening last week or the week before.”

Building Enduring Advantages

Efforts to build enduring advantages run the gamut, from investments in personnel issues and military construction, to funds dedicated to dealing with the effects of climate change, to a record-breaking research budget.

For service members, in addition to the 4.6 percent pay raise, the budget also includes increased fee assistance for child care, $2 billion in family housing construction, and another $1.3 billion for quality-of-life and medical facilities.

Other efforts to bolster talent retention and support for service members include expanded diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives and $479 million to implement the recommendations of the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military, which DOD leaders have pledged to follow.

For research and development of future capabilities, the budget calls for $130.1 billion, the largest RDT&E budget ever and a 9.5 percent increase over the the fiscal 2022 budget, itself already the largest research budget ever. Technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G are particular focus points for more research.

And for the first time, the budget breaks down just how much money the entire department is spending on climate change initiatives: $3.1 billion, with $2 billion for installation resiliency, $807 million for science and technology, $247 million for operational energy, and $28 million for contingency preparedness.

The decision to separate out the funding for climate change is in keeping with the Biden administration’s stated focus on the issue as a national security threat, but it does raise the possibility that some lawmakers may try to target the account while making cuts or shifting funds within the budget.

Hicks, however, expressed confidence that wouldn’t happen.

“I don’t think it creates an attack surface [for lawmakers],” Hicks said. “I think it demonstrates the administration’s commitment to ensuring we are resilient. We have to be resilient to cyber threats. We have to be resilient to climate change. Every lawmaker comes from a state or district where they are seeing the effects firsthand: rising sea levels, drought, fires, hurricanes … and that affects our installations. So we’ve seen a clear alignment in a bipartisan way with Congress on the installation resiliency piece of this.”

Likely Budget Battle in Congress

While Hicks may not expect a battle over the budget’s climate initiatives, it seems likely that there will be a real push by some in Congress to increase the budget’s overall top line, given the impact of inflation and pressure by many lawmakers to increase spending for 3 percent to 5 percent real growth.

Already, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has released a statement saying “this budget neglects to sufficiently account for historic inflation. The Pentagon’s inflation assumptions for 2023 are almost certainly low, nor does the budget make up for current record inflation rates.”

A similar process unfolded in the last budget cycle. President Joe Biden’s budget request of $715 billion for DOD in fiscal 2022 was a slight decrease when adjusted for inflation, and Congress quickly moved to increase that top line, with bipartisan support from the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.

Air Force to Retire Half Its AWACS Fleet, Most JSTARS, Leaving ‘Small Gap’ in ISR

March 28, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Air Force plans to retire half its AWACS fleet of E-3 Sentries and most E-8C JSTARS in fiscal 2023 and 2024, but it anticipates a delay between the retirements and new space-based ISR capabilities that could replace them, Air Force leaders said as the 2023 budget request rolled out.

JSTARS aircraft “are not survivable—they’d be gone in a minute,” said Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III, deputy assistant secretary for budget, explaining why the Air Force plans to retire 12 of 16 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, aircraft by the end of fiscal ’24. The first eight of those aircraft would be retired in fiscal ’23, with four more aircraft going in 2024. Those funds would be redirected to develop more survivable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, capabilities.

Similarly, the Air Force plans to retire 15 E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., also because of reliability and survivability concerns. “We’re going to a new capability,” Peccia said. The E-3 is “not survivable in a future fight, so it doesn’t bring us the capability we need.”

The Air Force intends to invest $227 million into E-3 AWACS recapitalization development, almost certain to be an acquisition of Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail. Australia already operates a version of that aircraft.

Peccia admitted there will be a capability gap as new capabilities, including space-based ISR, are being developed. “There may be a small gap, but not anything we can’t manage,” he said.

Both fleets are about 40 years old, and readiness and maintenance are growing challenges.

For now, however, the 16 remaining AWACS aircraft would be retained at Kadena Air Base, Japan, and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Peccia said.

He said the Air Force will decide in 2023 on a new platform to provide the airborne moving target indicator, or AMTI, capability that JSTARS historically has offered. The Air Force will continue to operate multiple ground surveillance ISR platforms, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk, “across the duration of the coverage reduction caused by JSTARS retirement.”

Peccia said a space-based solution is still in an option: “We are researching space-based capabilities.”

Air Force Would Reduce Fleet by 250 Old Aircraft, Bring on 82-plus New Ones

March 28, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is asking Congress to retire 150 airplanes in its fiscal 2023 budget, including 33 of its advanced F-22 fighters, but it would also hand off 100 MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft to another government agency and buy more than 82 other new airplanes, including an accelerated buy of F-15EX Eagle IIs. Its planned buy of the F-35 fighter would be pared back by 15 aircraft as the service waits for a more advanced model.

For the fiscal 2022 budget, out of 201 legacy types the Air Force asked to retire, Congress allowed the service to divest all except 42 A-10s.

Air Force leaders signaled that after “due diligence” and market research, they will likely seek to buy the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail as a replacement for the E-3 AWACS. They threw cold water on the notion of a competition for a second modern tanker, indicating they’ll likely stick with a modified version of Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus. And, it will also curtail purchase of the HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter at 75 aircraft instead of 113, saying it will have enough aircraft for the mission after this year, given the changing nature of combat search and rescue.

Two new unmanned aircraft among Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s “operational imperatives”—a tactical unmanned escort for fighters and a strategic-range unmanned bomber—feature in the budget only as research and development projects. Together, they are called the Autonomous Collaborative Program, and are funded at $113 million, but are not yet a program of record.

Divestments

The fiscal 2023 budget request seeks retirements of the following aircraft:

A-10

The Air Force asks to retire 21 jets from the Fort Wayne, Ind., Air National Guard facility and transition the unit to 21 F-16s.

F-22

Of its 36 Block 20 F-22s—which are used for training and not configured as frontline combat jets—USAF is looking to retire 33, which will bring the F-22 fleet down to 153 airplanes. Kendall, in an embargoed March 25 budget brief for the press, said upgrading the aircraft to full combat capability would not be cost effective given that the F-22 is set to phase out in about 10 years. He said the savings will be applied directly to the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, which will backfill the F-22.

The affected aircraft “are being used for training right now but are not combat capable,” Kendall said. “So, we see an efficiency, effectively, in removing those aircraft at this point.” However, USAF asked for $344 million to upgrade the sensors and other systems on the remaining Raptors in fiscal 2023.

E-3 AWACS

The Air Force wants to retire 15 aircraft at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The E-3 has become difficult to maintain, with poor mission capable rates, and Kendall said the service will do market research “due diligence” and will make a decision “within the next several months” on whether to pursue the E-7 as a replacement. Only 16 AWACS will remain, but the Air Force did not say when they will phase out completely.

E-8 Joint STARS

The budget plan calls for retirement of eight JSTARS in 2023 and four more in 2024, with funding “redirected to emerging ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capabilities that can operate in highly contested environments,” a service spokesperson said. Kendall has suggested these capabilities can largely be supplied by space-based assets.

“Basically, both the JSTARS fleet and the AWACS fleet are aging out and need to be replaced,” Kendall said.

C-130H

USAF would give up 12 C-130s from Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., but is buying four new C-130-J30s, for a net reduction of eight aircraft. USAF budget director Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III said the C-130s would be backfilled with the new MH-139 helicopter.

T-1 Trainer

The Air Force is introducing new simulation and training techniques to obviate the need to re-engine or replace the T-1, relying on the T-6 for the newly-determined actual flying hours. Aircraft will be redistributed among Undergraduate Pilot Training bases and will phase out as new simulation and training gear is brought online.

KC-135

The Air Force is looking to retire 13 KC-135s from the Guard and Reserve, converting the losing units to the KC-46A Pegasus. The service will take “a measured amount of risk” in the gap between the departure of the old aircraft and arrival of the new, a spokesperson said. Four of the KC-135s will come from March Air Reserve Base, Calif., and nine from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. Kendall referred to this divestiture as a “modest” reduction, but acknowledged, “we’re going to need some cooperation from Congress on that.”

MQ-9

Kendall said the Air Force is “taking 100 MQ-9s and moving them to another government organization.” He did not specify the organization. “It comes up as a divestment, but it’s not a change in capability,” he said.

Procurement

The Air Force’s list of new aircraft buys is a bit shorter than the list of divestitures.

F-35

After several years of requesting 48 F-35s—and being given up to 12 more each of those years by Congress—the Air Force is requesting only 33 F-35s in 2023.

There’s “a whole collection of reasons” for the reduction, Kendall said. First, the performance of the F-35’s Tech Refresh 3 update is “not what we wanted,” he said, and the TR3 is the basis for the Block 4 version of the jet, which USAF has long said it prefers to buy. The Air Force is investing some additional money in the Advanced Engine Technology Program (AETP) that could power an upgraded F-35. It sees an opportunity to accelerate the F-15EX and is continuing to put money against the Next Generation Air Dominance program. After investing in those areas, in the context of “the whole TacAir portfolio,” Kendall said the F-35 reduction makes sense.

Moreover, “if you look further out in the FYDP (Future Years Defense Plan) that we’ll provide, the numbers come back up,” he said.

Asked if the Air Force remains committed to the fighter, Kendall said, “Of course.”

“We’re 15 years into production, and we’ll be building F-35s probably another 15 years. So, absolutely.” Kendall said the F-35 will continue to be, as Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has said, the “cornerstone” of the tactical fleet “for the foreseeable future. So there’s no question about that.”

Kendall noted that the AETP is a costly development program and that USAF is still courting “partners” among the other services to share the cost and the benefit of a new powerplant.

F-15EX

The Air Force doubles its 2022 request, from 12 Eagle IIs to 24 in 2023.

Kendall said Brown wants to “replace F-15Cs as quickly as possible,” and the availability of the F-15EX makes that possible. “He did say it was on the order of six months to a year in terms of time to replace those aircraft, which are aging out very quickly,” Kendall said, referring to the time it takes to transition an F-15 squadron to an F-15EX, rather than the F-35.

“It also provides some operational features,” Kendall added. “It’s really a 4.5 generation kind of an airplane, but it provides more weapons carriage capabilities, writ large, than the F-35 does. So, for the homeland defense mission, and for some defensive counterair applications overseas, it has features that are desirable, operationally.”

Peccia said the F-15C/Ds will retire completely by fiscal 2026.

“One of the fundamental things motivating me on the operational imperatives in the TacAir area is the affordability of the future force,” Kendall noted. If we’re only buying NGAD, which is a very expensive platform; F-35s at $80 million a copy; and F-15EXs at $80 million a copy; we can’t afford the Air Force. So we’ve got to get a mix of lower-cost platforms, as well.” These, he said, would fall under the research effort toward Autonomous Collaborative Programs.

B-21 Bomber

The FY’23 budget grows by $1.7 billion to start low-rate initial production of the B-21 bomber, but Peccia said he could not reveal how many aircraft that will entail. At the time of the program’s unveiling, USAF officials said low-rate would probably entail five aircraft a year for several years.

KC-46A

The Air Force upped its 2022 buy from 14 to 15 in 2023, adding $220 million for the additional aircraft and getting the KC-46 rate up to where it was already planned to be. Kendall said he thinks the Air Force will likely stay with the KC-46 as it plans its next tranche of tanker buys.

“We had a KC-X, Y, and Z” scheme, Kendall said. “As we look at our requirements further out, [they] start to look more like a modified KC-46 than they do a completely new design.” Although the Air Force will do its “due diligence” and market research on other options, such as Lockheed Martin’s LMXT version of the A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport, Kendall didn’t offer optimism about a new tanker contest.

“I want to be very transparent about this,” he said. “I think there’s still a possibility of competition out there, but as we’ve looked at our requirements, the likelihood of a competition has come down.” He said USAF will come to some decisions “over the next several months” and “decide where we want to go.”

HH-60W

The Air Force’s plan was to buy 113 HH-60W helicopters for Combat Search and Rescue, but USAF said it will “complete the buy” with 10 more aircraft in 2023.

“That’ll get us to 75 helicopters,” Peccia said. Kendall said that, given the shift in focus toward the Indo-Pacific, the need for the HH-60W diminished.

“It’s been reduced,” he said. “The scenarios we’re most worried about are not the same as they once were.” The HH-60W was a good solution in counterinsurgencies but doesn’t match the requirement against peer adversaries.

“The acts of aggression like we’re seeing in Europe, or we might end up seeing in the Pacific with the pacing challenge, puts us in a very different scenario, from a combat rescue point of view.”

Last August, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark D. Kelly said Airmen who go down in contested areas of the Pacific may have to get themselves to a place where they can be picked up, given that the air defense threat will be so challenging to manage a rescue.

MH-139

The Air Force is buying five MH-139s in fiscal 2023. Peccia said they were in the 2022 budget but had several certifications yet to be completed. Those are now done, or will be in “the next couple of months,” and the program can proceed, he said. The goal remains to buy 80 of the Gray Wolf helos. The helicopter will replace the aging UH-1Ns, which are used for security at the Air Force’s nuclear missile fields, VIP transport in the Air Force District of Washington and Japan, and survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training.

USAF Seeks ‘Transformational’ Change in 2023 Budget as It Looks to Keep Pace With China

March 28, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie and John A. Tirpak

The Department of the Air Force is requesting $234.1 billion in its 2023 budget request, of which $40.1 billion is “pass-through funds,” or money the services will never see, while $169.5 billion is for USAF and $24.5 billion is for the Space Force. The budget request looks to cut 240 aircraft, including 33 fifth-generation F-22 stealth fighters and the majority of the AWACS fleet, to pay for additional research and development, long-delayed nuclear modernization programs, and the growing Space Force. It also significantly reduces the F-35 buy.

The 2023 budget request represents a $12 billion increase over the $182 billion enacted by Congress in 2022—one of the largest increases in years. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the 2023 request attempts a “transformational” change in the services, motivated by China’s rapid modernization and taking into account Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Service leaders view the 2023 request as a prelude to even more profound “transformational” changes in fiscal 2024.

Research, development, test, and evaluation would get a 20 percent boost when compared to the 2022 budget request, while procurement would get a 15 percent increase. Operations and maintenance would go up four percent, while military personnel accounts and military construction would increase by 2.3 percent and two percent, respectively.

The service would pay for much of the R&D increase by retiring some 140 aircraft, including the bulk of the E-3 AWACS and E-8 J STARS fleets, and about a sixth of the inventory of Air Force’s premier air superiority fighter the F-22. USAF would also transfer 100 MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft to an unnamed federal agency, so its total reduction comes to 240 airplanes. On the plus side, it is buying 82 new aircraft, for a net change of 158 fewer airplanes.

In last year’s budget request, USAF wanted to retire 201 airplanes and buy 91. Congress allowed all of the divestments, with the exception of 42 A-10 Warthogs.

Kendall said the service can’t afford to wait for transformative change achieved in small, incremental steps.

“What drives that is the threat,” he told reporters in an embargoed March 25 budget briefing. “We need to move aggressively.” Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown’s “accelerate or change” motto “is very apt,” Kendall said. “What you’ll see in the budget is part of the transformation that we’re trying to achieve.” Despite the “acute concern” over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China remains “the pacing threat,” he emphasized.

Kendall said the budget was built expecting “aggression” from Russia against Ukraine or China against Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. “Those of us who had access to the intelligence were not surprised by what happened,” he said. “And so, our planning took into account that this type of event could occur.”

While the services for many years funded their war consumption and recapitalization of lost assets under the “Overseas Contingency Operations” account, such funding is now either funded through the base budget or a special congressional appropriation.

The boost in R&D, however, is only a “down payment” on future capabilities, he said. There will be more “hard choices” coming in the fiscal year 2024 budget and the outyears, Kendall warned.

The budget makes a big payment on the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) increasing funds by $1.1 billion as the service moves toward an initial operational capability date of 2029. It also adds $354 million to the B-21 bomber program to continue engineering, manufacturing, and development and to support nuclear certification. The Space Force budget, meanwhile, invests heavy in missile warning and tracking, air and ground moving target technology, and space domain awareness, senior Air Force leadership told journalists at the budget preview briefing.

While air mobility is largely set, Kendall noted, “the transformation is more focused” on “the tactical side and the global strike side.”

The budget only provides for 33 F-35 fighters, versus previous years’ requests for 48, and Congress’ frequent adds above even that level. Kendall said the reduction was to buy some time for Lockheed Martin to fix problems with the Technical Refresh 3 upgrade that makes the Block 4 version possible. He insisted that the Air Force “remains committed” to the F-35 and to the total buy of 1,763. “We’ll probably be buying the F-35 another 15 years,” he said.

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the F-35 buy is the “smallest number in years.

The budget also calls for a speed-up in the acquisition of the F-15EX, which doubles from 12 bought last year to 24 in FY’23. Kendall said there’s an “opportunity” to replace the existing F-15C fleet with F-15EX, and the plan is to buy them as swiftly as possible.

“Given an F-35A production line that today can build 80 F-35As annually, this is truly high-risk to a vital program,” Deptula said. “The choice to accelerate purchases of the F-15EX—a valuable, but technologically inferior airplane—is helpful, but not adequate to shore up the Air Force’s declining combat capacity. USAF’s FY23 budget request results in numbers less than those required to sustain existing force structure. Congress should not allow that to happen.”

The 33 F-22s being retired are of the Block 20 model, and are used as training airplanes. It would be too costly to modernize them to a combat-capable configuration, said USAF budget director Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III. Even so, the F-22 fleet would get $344 million for sensor upgrades and other improvements.

“When you put it all together, we ended up deciding to take a reduction of F-35s,” Kendall said of the overall tactical plan.

There’s also $113 million in a line item for “Autonomous Collaborative Programs,” the unmanned tactical and strategic platforms Kendall sees as complementing the B-21 and Next-Generation Air Dominance fleets. Though he noted it’s not yet a program of record.

Kendall explained that while Russia posed “an acute concern,” in planning the budget, “the pacing challenge is still China.”

Research and development accounts for 25 percent of the total Department of the Air Force budget, or $49.2 billion, divided between $33.4 billion for the Air Force and $15.8 million for the Space Force.

GBSD tops the Air Force category with a $3.6 billion investment, followed by the B-21 at $3.25 billion.

Research, Development, Test and Evaluation investment also calls for a $1.66 billion investment in the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation fighter and $1.08 billion in the F-35A. The NGAD investment is for advanced sensors and air vehicle technology.

Hypersonics research is proposed to receive $577 million divided between fighter-launched Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) and the bomber-launched Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). Kendall has said he plans to reduce the emphasis on hypersonics because while they are an asymmetric necessity for China, USAF has different priorities. Peccia said that most of the $138 million increase would be directed toward HACM.

The Space Force will absorb the Space Development Agency (SDA) budget in 2023, and invest an additional $1 billion for the ground and geosynchronous orbit space segments of the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) missile warning system, a constellation of new satellites. In all, Next Gen OPIR would be slated for $3.48 billion.

Another $1 billion would go to resilient missile warning and missile tracking to address hypersonic weapons and maneuverable reentry vehicles. Meanwhile, $987 million would go toward missile warning and tracking. On the acquisition side, the Space Force proposes a $1.1 billion investment in three additional National Security Space launches and $314 million for three SDA launches.

The Air Force end strength will decrease by 4,900 to 510,400 in fiscal 23, with Kendall indicating that would happen by attrition. The Space Force will add 200 Guardians to its ranks.

Airmen will receive a 4.6 percent pay raise, a 4.2 percent basic allowance housing raise, and a fund of $300,000 will be created for basic needs allowance that Airmen can apply for under special economic circumstances. Inflation in the budget accounts for some $6.3 billion, or a rate of 2.2 percent, in line with government standards.

While the President’s Budget is a wish list until it passes Congress, Kendall was hopeful that like last year he will get the divestments he needs to transform the services for the future.

“As we go forward, I think they’re going to be some hard choices. We are going to do some divestments,” said Kendall. “That change will continue, we have to do that. We have to really get rid of what I’ll call legacy equipment in order to have the resources to modernize.”

The Air Force Association praised the decision to fund long-delayed strategic nuclear modernization programs, such as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent and B-21 bomber, as well as the boost in R&D funds. However, AFA president, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, said the budget is insufficient to meet the growing demand for airpower around the globe.

“The Air Force budget remains flat at a time when it is shouldering costs for two legs of the nuclear triad and three decades of deferred modernization,” Wright said in a statement. “The United States justifiably surged investment in our land components funding to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq; to do that, the nation took risk and deferred investment in air and space. Now it is time to surge air and space to solve today’s threat-based demands.

US, Ukrainian leaders Meet in Warsaw as Russia Ramps Up Air Attacks on Ukraine

March 26, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

As Russia ramps up its air campaign on Ukraine, U.S. and Ukrainian leaders met in Warsaw to find ways to fight back Russian aggression.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted a photo on March 26 of U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III meeting with himself and other Ukrainian leaders. “This special 2+2 format allows us to seek practical decisions in both political and defense spheres in order to fortify Ukraine’s ability to fight back Russian aggression,” he said.

The meeting comes after President Joe Biden called a NATO leaders summit, followed by meetings with European and G-7 counterparts, to unite allies and partners in the ongoing sanctions against Russian leaders.

The Pentagon said March 25 that Russia had dug into defensive positions around Kyiv, instead focusing its land and air effort on “liberating” the Donbas region. But Ukraine may have taken back Kherson from Russia and the Ukrainian Navy blew up a re-supply ship at the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine’s recent moves could drive a wedge in Russia’s effort to lockdown the eastern region of the country, home to a large minority of Russian speakers. Russia has surrounded the port city of Mariupol for days, a missing link that would connect occupied Donbas with Crimea. For weeks, Defense Department officials have pointed to a perceived effort by Russia to lock down the south and pin down Ukrainian forces in the Joint Forces Operation area, where they have operated since Russia invaded in 2014.

“The Donbas is really where they’re … focused right now, on the ground and in the air,” a senior defense official told reporters March 25.

“They have tried to make up for the fact that they haven’t been able to move well on the ground by the increasing use of airstrikes, and missile strikes, and artillery strikes on population centers,” the official added. “They don’t appear to want to pursue Kyiv as aggressively, or frankly, at all.”

Moscow has fired more than 1,250 missiles into Ukraine, and despite reporting about high fail rates for its air-launched cruise missiles and a depleting missile inventory, DOD assesses that Russia still has over half its fire power.

Russia claimed March 25 that its first wartime objective has been achieved.

“The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal—the liberation of Donbass,” Sergei Rudskoi, head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, said in a statement.

The Defense Department rated Russia’s combat power as 85 to 90 percent of its pre-positioned strength. Recent DOD assessments of Ukraine’s combat power were estimated at 90 percent, based on constant replenishment from Western partners.

The defense official said parts of the $800 million defense package signed by President Joe Biden March 16 have started arriving in Ukraine, with additional shipments of anti-tank Javelins and anti-aircraft Stingers arriving in Europe in the coming days.

“Another flight arrived in the region today,” the defense official said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.

Long-range air defense systems promised by Biden in a public address following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to Congress have yet to arrive. Likewise, after the U.S. rejected an offer by Poland March 8 to help transfer MiG-29s, the official clarified that “the United States is not putting a veto on people giving the Ukrainians aircraft.”

Even without the SAMS and aircraft it says it needs, Ukraine is still holding off the Russian advance.

Ukraine appears to be making headway in the south of the country, where Russian forces moving north from Crimea made their strongest advance and took the city of Kherson early in the month-long war.

“Kherson is actually contested territory again,” the official said.

Losing Kherson would split Russian forces and hinder an attack on Odesa. Russia also suffered a blow in another city it controls in the south, the port city of Berdyansk, where a Russian warship that had been resupplying troops was blown up pier side by the Ukrainian Navy.

DOD asserted that the Russian aim in the east could be motivated by an effort to consolidate gains, unless they are undone.

“They are putting their priorities and their effort in the east of Ukraine. And that’s where still, there remains a lot of heavy fighting,” the official said. “We think they are trying to … secure some sort of more substantial gains there as a potential negotiating tactic at the table.”

Air Force Stands Up New Information Warfare Training Unit

March 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is looking to revamp the way it trains Airmen for information warfare with the establishment of a new wing-level organization.

The Information Warfare Training and Research Initiative Detachment, known as Det. 1, stood up by Air Combat Command in a March 22 ceremony at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. It will connect Airmen from different locations to conduct training and research on IW, according to an ACC press release.

The organization is the product of several years of collaboration between ACC, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Secretary of the Air Force’s Office of Concepts, Development, and Management, as they worked with academic groups to develop new ways of training for information warfare.

That push is part of a broader overall trend within the service to beef up its capabilities and expertise in electronic warfare. Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. warned in January that the Air Force has been “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to electromagnetic spectrum warfare.

Maj. Gen. Daniel L. Simpson, Air Force assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, remarked in February that the service has to “make up for 20 years of neglect,” and experts have agreed that over the course of time, the Pentagon has not invested enough in training for EW.

The new detachment is aimed at accelerating and boosting the training programs and opportunities already in place, ACC said, by “designing and building training environments and linking Airmen across the world to enable operators and researchers to experiment, test, and train in the information environment and electromagnetic spectrum,” according to a release.

As a hybrid wing-level organization, the detachment will be a subordinate unit of the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and will maintain operating locations at Davis-Monthan, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and at the 67th Cyberspace Wing in Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.

Distributed across multiple locations, the unit will be able to connect to more Airmen for more regular training.

Already, ACC and its partners have hosted 22 information warfare-focused events, with Airmen, Guardians, joint partners, and members of academia and industry joining in experiments and training. The events have enabled information warfare training for larger Air Force missions like air superiority or ISR.

“We’ve adapted a ‘build, learn, correct, repeat’ model,” Col. Christopher Budde, chief of ACC’s information warfare division, said in a statement. “We are experimenting with sustainable processes and events in quick succession to scale conceptual ideas, operationally test them, then integrate these processes across the larger federated enterprise.”

These events can span locations, allowing for IW-focused units and Airmen to get training no matter where they are. They will also help Det. 1 to “rethink traditional training and research models,” ACC said.

“If we want to be a resolute world power, we must not only compete in the global commons but also compete and win in contested sovereigns,” ACC commander Gen. Mark D. Kelly said in a statement. “Most competition, if not all combat, will take place in the electromagnetic spectrum. Focusing our offensive and defensive capabilities in the digitally-enabled domain is critical to honing our lethality in strategic competition.”

Arctic Hasn’t Gotten Enough in Past Pentagon Budgets, VanHerck Says. Will That Change in 2023?

March 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Northern Command boss Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, who has pushed for the Pentagon to allocate more resources to the Arctic region in its annual budget, hopes to see a “significant” funding boost for domain awareness in 2023.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 24, just four days before the 2023 budget request is released, VanHerck fielded plenty of questions from lawmakers concerned about the Arctic, a region of increasing importance where the melting ice cap, natural resources, and shipping lanes are all contested by the U.S., Russia, and even China, among other nations.

In June 2021, VanHerck told the Congressional panel that the budget only “inched” progress forward in the region, adding that “we didn’t move the ball very far down the field this year in the budget with regards to resources in the Arctic.”

Nine months later, his concerns about investments remain.

“We have not seen the funding that I would like to see with regards to the Arctic,” VanHerck told Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).

Sullivan then noted, as VanHerck also has, that the services are at least paying more attention to the region—the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Department of the Air Force have all released strategic plans for the Arctic, some for the very first time, in the past few years.

But thus far, the money hasn’t matched those strategies, Sullivan and VanHerck said.

“I look forward to seeing the ‘23 budget,” VanHerck said. “The Arctic is strategic in nature. We must be persistent there to compete. That’s a part of … integrated deterrence.”

The Pentagon will rollout the fiscal 2023 budget request on March 28, and VanHerck indicated he hadn’t yet seen what it entails for the Arctic.

“Without seeing the ‘23 budget, I really can’t give you a full assessment of what we’re going to see for infrastructure support. I believe we will see additional domain awareness capabilities significantly funded with the ‘23 budget, but I look forward to seeing that,” VanHerck said. “I would assess that there may still be some work to do with regards to the strategies that each of the services have … put out, and the department strategy. But when the budget comes out, I’ll give you the final assessment.”

Domain awareness in the Arctic has been a stated priority for DOD for several years now. Billy Mitchell famously said that, “Alaska is the most central place in the world for aircraft operations.” It is closer to China than Hawaii, where Pacific Air Forces is headquarters is located, and when the ice freezes over in the winter, there are places where you can actually walk from U.S. to Russian territory.

But operating in the Arctic is always a challenge due to the harsh conditions and relative lack of infrastructure. There are actually more roads in the state of New Jersey, than there are in all of Alaska, even though if if placed Alaska on a map of the lower 48 it would stretch from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Francisco, Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm, the most senior military officer in Alaska, told Air Force Magazine.

Infrastructure is one area where VanHerck sees a need for investment, so the U.S. can continue to be a persistent presence in the region.

“We do need a presence, and fuel north of Dutch Harbor would do that, as would infrastructure and communications capabilities,” VanHerck said. “I look forward to working with the Canadians on their part of this. They need to be part of it as well, not only the Department of Defense, especially on the infrastructure piece.”

Both Russia and China, which is not technically an Arctic nation, have become increasingly aggressive in asserting their presence in the region.

“The Chinese are active in the Arctic,” VanHerck told lawmakers. “Each of the last five years, they’ve sent a vessel under the guise of a research vessel into the Arctic for military purposes, we assess. … And so they’re there. They’re influencing nations, they want to change and influence international norms and behavior as well.”

There is also the threat that Russia and China could pose by launching a missile to fly over the region to strike the U.S. In such a crisis, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) pressed VanHerck on how he would coordinate with other combatant commands.

“I’m comfortable with the way the unified campaign plan is currently laid out. We have outstanding relationships with Canada, outstanding relationships with [U.S. European Command] and [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command]. I do think we need to look at, based on threat changes, how we would command and control those capabilities,” VanHerck replied.

“The threats to the homeland today do not reside in my area of responsibility. They are actually existing in other areas of responsibility, such as the INDOPACOM area of responsibility and the EUCOM area of responsibility. So I do think there’s potential gaps and seams that we need to make sure that we close those in a time of crisis and conflict to ensure we don’t have challenges that were unaccounted for.”

Gen. Charles G. Boyd, Former POW, Dies at 83

March 24, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Gen. Charles G. Boyd, the only Vietnam-era prisoner of war to become a four-star general, died March 23 at the age of 83. Boyd was also a former vice commander of 8th Air Force, commander of Air University, and deputy commander of U.S. European Command.

Born in Iowa, Boyd entered the Air Force in 1959 through the aviation cadet program. He learned to fly the F-100 Super Sabre and F-105 Thunderchief, and was deployed to Southeast Asia in November 1965.

On April 22, 1966, Boyd volunteered for an unusually dangerous mission to attack surface-to-air missile sites around Hanoi, the North Vietnamese capital, in an F-105D. According to his citation for the Air Force Cross—the highest decoration after the Medal of Honor—Boyd, on his 105th mission over the North, bravely pressed the attack repeatedly through heavy enemy fire, including close calls with two SAMS. After repeated passes, he was hit. Ejecting at high speed, the force of the wind tore his helmet off, and shortly after landing in a rice paddy, he was captured.

Boyd spent the next seven years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, enduring torture, brutal interrogation, solitary confinement, malnutrition, and illness. For 18 months, he was imprisoned adjacent to Navy flyer John McCain, who later became a U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate.

Boyd was among the 50 or so prisoners forced to walk through the capital in the 1966 “Hanoi March,” a propaganda event in which downed pilots were humiliated and struck by civilians lining the march route, showing that Hanoi refused to be bound by the Geneva Convention banning such treatment.

Boyd was repatriated in 1973 after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. He resumed his Air Force career, taking four years to heal up from his injuries, earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and attend the Air War College. Due to malnutrition during his captivity, Boyd’s eyesight wasn’t good enough to allow him to resume USAF flying duties, although he flew private aircraft for many years afterwards.

Over the next 12 years, Boyd rose rapidly through the ranks, holding staff and command assignments in the Pentagon and Europe. From December 1986 until June of 1988 he was vice commander of 8th Air Force; from 1990-1992 he commanded Air University; and in his last post he was deputy commander-in-chief of U.S. European Command, retiring in August 1995 as a four-star general.

Boyd remained an active voice in national security after his Air Force career. He served as a strategy consultant to Rep. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House; and in 1998, he served as director of the Hart-Rudman commission assessing U.S. security needs for the 21st century. Seven months before the 9/11 attacks, the panel presciently called for the creation of a federal department much like the eventual Department of Homeland Security to monitor terrorism and protect against it.

He later became senior vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, as its Washington program director. He also worked as a director at various defense and intelligence-oriented companies, was CEO of the Business Executives for National Security, and was chair of the Center for the National Interest think tank.

Boyd wrote that fighter pilots were uniquely suited to endure the ravages of being POWs, as they were accustomed to facing battle relying almost entirely on their own wits and resources.

“It should not seem surprising that this breed of men would be as well-equipped as anyone to cope with the special problems of isolation,” Boyd said. The enemy “thought they could ‘divide and conquer;’ that without collective leadership we would not be able to maintain our resistance and resolve. But they did not reckon with the individual integrity of the American fighter pilot.” The endurance of American POWs in Vietnam is “a testimony to the individual spirit,” Boyd said. “We returned with our mental health …because the highest degree of achievement is possible only when man is imbued with a spirit of individualism.”

Air Force Association President, retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright, said “Gen. Boyd was an inspirational figure, in his warrior spirit, his incredible endurance under brutal conditions, and his intellectual gifts to the national security community. An exemplary leader for generations of Airmen, he inspired us in every encounter.”

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, worked for Boyd from 1988 to 1989 and remained in contact with him throughout his life. “Gen. Boyd was a giant of an Airman” who “exuded thoughtfulness in all the aspects of the word,” Deptula said. “From the perspective of complete evaluation of all aspects of a situation, to the empathy of man who had consideration for others’ perspectives. … He took me flying in his T-34 not that long ago, and he was at home in the air. May he Rest In Peace in his final resting place in the clouds. He was a true warrior, scholar, leader, Airman, and will be dearly missed.”