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.

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.