Air Force Launching New App for Enlisted, Officer Evaluation Systems

Jan. 14, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen and Guardians will get to familiarize themselves with the Department of the Air Force’s new enlisted and officer evaluation system application starting Jan. 18, as the department continues its overhaul of talent management.

myEvaluation, or myEval, was first made available to human resource professionals starting Jan. 4. After a two-week familiarization period for Airmen and Guardians, it will be opened for full use and functionality starting Feb. 4. It will be accessible through the myFSS platform landing page.

The new application succeeds the Virtual Personnel Center platform, but vPC won’t be going away immediately—officer and enlisted evaluations with a close-out date of May 30 or earlier will continue to be processed in vPC, while everything after will be in myEval.

“Shifting to a 21st century IT application, like myEval, enables the department to greatly improve our performance feedback and evaluation systems, synchronizing and complementing the many updates we’ve made to our talent management systems over the past couple of years,” Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, said in a statement. “The myEval application reduces administrative burdens, enhances the user experience, and provides leaders with performance data to assist in making informed talent management decisions.”

myEval is just the latest change to how the Air Force is approaching talent management. Early in 2021, the service unveiled its Airman Leadership Qualities—10 categories ranging from “emotional intelligence” to “adaptability” to “innovation”—as an optional companion to the Airman Comprehensive Assessment for senior noncommissioned officers and officers.

In December, the service announced that the ALQs would be integrated into feedback for all Airmen across ranks starting March 31, 2022. The Air Force also said the ALQs would form the basis of new officer and enlisted evaluation systems to be released later in 2022.

The transition to myEval, Kelly said in a statement, will begin “the evolution” to those new evaluation systems based on the ALQs. The Air Force’s release states that ALQ-based evaluations will start in the fall of 2022.

The Space Force, meanwhile, will transition to myEval but will continue to use Airman Comprehensive Assessment feedback forms and current officer and enlisted performance reports until the new service announces a transition decision. The Space Force released its first human capital plan, “The Guardian Ideal,” in September 2021.

While myEval is set to launch in the coming days, enhancements will be rolled out over time, the Air Force promised, including the auto-population of information directly from the Military Personnel Data System and “integration with other myFSS applications, such as myFitness, to auto-populate performance-related data.”

These moves coincide with other changes to Air Force personnel management, such as the introduction of the new-look fitness test with alternate exercises and changes to how Enlisted Performance Reports are scored in the Enlisted Evaluation System. Most recently, the service unveiled its new Enlisted Force Development Action Plan on Jan. 12, outlining 28 force development objectives to be completed over the next two years.

There have also been changes to the platforms used for talent management—myFitness was launched in June 2021 to centralize PT assessments and schedule PT tests, and for paperwork.

“The journey of improving our evaluation system for both the enlisted and officer corps is in full swing,” Col. Laura King, the Air Force Talent Management Innovation Cell director, said in a release. “There are several milestones along this journey to a competency-based evaluation system that enables increased transparency and more direct feedback between Airmen and their supervisors. The launch of myEval is a big step towards reaching our end goals.”

AI, Networks, Hypersonics Are the Pentagon’s Top Research Priorities

Jan. 14, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Artificial Intelligence, integrated networks, hypersonics, and microelectronics are among the top priorities for Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. In a wide-ranging discussion with reporters Jan. 13, Shyu also said hypersonics test capacity will see a big boost in the fiscal 2023 program objective memoranda and that a major experiment in joint all-domain command and control will take place in February, connecting platforms from all the services.

Shyu said she had planned to reduce the 11 top priorities created by the previous administration.

“I thought I could neck it down quite a bit, but I sort of failed, and I think I’ve ballooned it instead,” she said. The new list should be published soon. Shyu didn’t want to get ahead of the announcement but mentioned “trusted AI” and integrated networks as high on the list. The latter is necessary “to use autonomy on an unmanned system,” she said. She also mentioned hypersonics and microelectronics, which were the top two under the previous administration. Microlelectronics displaced hypersonics as the top priority on the previous list in 2020.

Microelectronics is “a critical piece that’s in everything,” Shyu said, adding that she is working with the Department of Commerce on the area and that Congress “is interested in giving us additional funding” for the work.

‘Pushing’ Hypersonics

Shyu said the Air Force’s AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response (ARRW) boost-glide hypersonic missile has suffered from both supply chain disruptions and the COVID pandemic, and this has contributed to setbacks in the program.

All the services are “pushing” hypersonics contractors “on an accelerated, … very aggressive schedule,” she said, and problems are to be expected. She said the Army’s hypersonic missil e will likely become operational in 2023, and the Navy’s should be operational in 2025, because “it’s the same” platform, just sea-launched. She did not comment on the timing of the ARRW.

Without specifying any one program, Shyu likened the hypersonics enterprise to SpaceX: “Have they had failures? Yes. Are they considered successful? Yes. They’re considered a very successful company, but they’ve had quite a number of blow-ups.”

She said she will continue to push the hypersonics contractors “hard.”

“I have to give the Army and Navy a lot of credit for not just working collaboratively together … but working very closely with industry and [the] laboratories,” she said.

While the Air Force’s air-breathing hypersonic missile programs will likely be “cheaper” than all the services’ boost-glide systems, they won’t have “quite the same range as ship-launch and Army [ground] launch. So you really need all of the above … You need diversity.”

She acknowledged that the Pentagon’s hypersonic test ranges and wind tunnels are operating at full capacity, which has slowed some of the test effort, and said “a significant increase in our test infrastructure” is “embedded” in the fiscal 2023 program objective memoranda.

Shyu said her office is working closely with contractors to develop the hypersonics “ecosystem” that will create the industrial capacity to make hypersonic systems at scale. The initial examples of all hypersonic missiles will be high, she said, but she is working to “drive the cost down” with an effort to “productize” the systems and build them in quantity, which should reduce unit cost, she said. Shyu also is working to “automate” hypersonics construction processes “rather than hand-build them.”

“If we automate some things, the cost will definitely come down. And if you buy materials … in bulk, it’s cheaper than buying onesies and twosies,” she said, comparing it to the bulk food store Costco. But “we’re looking at different technologies, … different materials, … that can help drive cost down as well.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Congress are highly supportive of hypersonics efforts and Congress is going to “give me the money, so I’m going to be sprinting” to operationalize the technology.

She declined to offer analysis of Chinese, Russian, or North Korean hypersonics capabilities because of classification. But Shyu said she is “not interested [in being] in a horse race with China or Russia” in hypersonics. “’You have 1,000 rockets, therefore I need to be having 1,000 rockets.’ That a losing proposition.”

Demonstrating JADC2

A major exercise is coming next month that will demonstrate major advances in JADC2, Shyu said.

“In February, there’s going to be a demonstration in which we literally stitch together Army, Navy, and Air Forces,” she said. “So I’m pretty thrilled. And I’m going to fly out and observe the system, … the demo, myself.” She declined to elaborate, except to say that “we will be able to demonstrate that platforms, across services, can literally talk to each other.”

Shyu’s billet now has a seat on the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), made up of the service vice chiefs, who deliberate about the department’s highest operational needs. Shyu said she’s had the opportunity to voice her technical concerns and that they have been listened to.

At the last such meeting, Shyu reported, she “poked at … billions” being spent to fill a “capability gap” in a space system.

“To close a capability gap on an old system made no sense to me,” she said. “That chunk of money is much better spent on developing a brand new system.” The then-chairman of the JROC, USAF Gen. John E. Hyten, gave the services direction to “come back with a revised plan” as a result, she said. She said having her position on the JROC is “working fantastic.”

She also said the Pentagon is “absolutely headed” toward a “resilient space architecture.” It’s also looking at “how to leverage a lot more of the commercial satellite capability, the commercial launches, just to drive the cost down.”

Shyu expects the fiscal 2023 research budget to be the largest ever for the Pentagon. She hosted members of Congress for a mid-December meeting “and they were thrilled. Halfway into my briefing,” they asked her, “’How much do you need?’” So “there’s a lot of enthusiasm for stuff I’m doing … I’m very happy” with the numbers, she said.

Broadly, Shyu said she is stepping up her engagement with industry, having monthly meetings with top prime CEOs and chief technology officers, as well as groups of small businesses.

Biden Turns to Military to Fill COVID-19 Medical Gap

Jan. 13, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Present Joe Biden has again turned to the military to fill staffing shortages and to help hospitals surge medical staffs as the omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to strain hospitals nationwide.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell joined Biden on Jan. 13 to announce that 1,000 Active-duty military medical personnel would form six medical teams to deploy to hospitals in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan, and New Mexico. DOD will source personnel from across the services in coming weeks to join 400 military medical personnel already assisting health-care providers and overwhelmed emergency staffs.

“When you need something done, call on the military,” Biden joked before beginning his address from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said. “As long as we have tens of millions of people who will not get vaccinated, we’re going to have full hospitals and needless deaths.”

The President, Austin, and Criswell were then briefed by military and medical teams already on the ground in Arizona, Michigan, and New York.

In summarizing his administration’s plan to confront the omicron surge, Biden emphasized the importance of vaccination, now required in the military. Air Force personnel were required to vaccinate by Nov. 2, 2021, with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve deadline Dec. 2, 2021. The latest deadline has been set for the Army National Guard on June 30, 2022.

Across the military, 1.6 million service members were fully vaccinated as of Jan. 12, and 340,000 were partially vaccinated. In the Air Force, 446,000 were fully vaccinated and 53,000 partially vaccinated.

Biden said nearly 210 million Americans have been vaccinated for COVID-19 and that 80 million Americans have received booster shots. The military does not yet keep records of booster shots received, and a booster requirement is still under discussion, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said June 13.

Biden said he would also use military tools to boost testing capacity.

In January 2021, America was conducting 2 million tests per day and now is conducting 15 million tests per day, the President said. By the end of January, the U.S. will have 375 million at-home rapid tests, but that still falls behind demand.

Biden said he would use the Defense Production Act to acquire 500 million at-home rapid tests and use the tool to ramp up production of an additional 500 million to distribute to Americans for free. Insurance providers will be required to reimburse Americans for eight tests per month.

In addition to the Active-duty personnel deployed and preparing to deploy, 14,000 National Guard members have been activated in 49 states to help governors combat COVID-19.

Kirby said the new military medical personnel who will deploy soon will act as a “relief valve” for health-care workers.

“They’ll be providing relief, triaging patients, helping to decompress overwhelmed emergency departments, and freeing up health-care providers to continue other life-saving care,” he said. “They’ll be working alongside health-care workers on the front lines to give them the support they need.”

Kirby said the 1,000 are just the “first wave” of deployments.

“Teams will continue to be mobilized and deployed where they are needed over the coming weeks to confront the omicron variant,” Kirby told defense journalists before conducting a series of live TV interviews to promote the President’s initiative and DOD role.

Pentagon Nominee Says US Should Be Faster to Aid Ukraine Than It Was in 2014

Jan. 13, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

In 2014, Celeste Wallander was the senior director for Russia and Central Asia at the National Security Council, under President Barack Obama, when Russia launched its invasion of the Crimean Peninsula, seizing the territory from Ukraine.

Now, nearly eight years later, Wallander is President Joe Biden’s nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and Russia is once again threatening to invade Ukraine, massing troops along the border and thus far resisting calls from NATO members to de-escalate the situation.

Looking back at what happened in 2014, the U.S. needs to be faster and more forceful in response to any Russian aggression, Wallander told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee at her confirmation hearing Jan. 13.

“I believe that the lessons of 2014 were that the United States needs to be, first and foremost, unified with our allies and partners, not only in Europe, but globally, in order to promote a unified front to the Kremlin and make them understand that they cannot divide us,” Wallander said. “And the second lesson would be to rapidly develop ways to impose costs on the Russian leadership and to support Ukraine in defense of its territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

Pressed by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Wallander added that the 2014 response was “too slow and too incremental” and that to provide aid to Ukraine—weapons such as the FGM-148 Javelin, an anti-tank missile—would have been “appropriate and necessary.”

In 2022, the situation has not yet devolved to the point of open conflict. But there are plenty of fears that it will. On Jan. 13, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, the chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, warned that the risk of war in Europe “is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years,” according to media reports.

Driving much of those fears is the seeming lack of progress in diplomatic discussions. Russia has demanded that Ukraine be barred from ever joining NATO and that the alliance withdraw all troops and weapons from any countries that joined NATO after 1997. The U.S. has rejected those ideas as “non-starters.”

Some analysts have suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands were never intended to be part of a negotiation and instead might even be a pretext for invading Ukraine.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) seemed to voice that very concern in questioning Wallander, saying Putin is “setting up these negotiations to fail, and leaving himself very little option other than either a humiliating retreat or invasion.”

“What do you make of this unusual negotiating strategy where you make demands that you know aren’t going to be met?” King then asked Wallander. “And is this just a pretext for an invasion?”

Wallender seemed to agree.

“Senator, I share your analytical assessment of the possible courses of action and the reasons for the demands that Russia has made publicly,” Wallander said. “And it concerns me greatly for Ukraine’s security and, indeed, for European and Euro-Atlantic security.”

At least for the moment, though, the Pentagon is still publicly holding out hope for avoiding any conflict.

“We have no indication that President Putin has made a decision to launch another incursion into Ukraine,” DOD Press Secretary John F. Kirby said in a press gaggle Jan. 13. “He clearly continues to have a military capability that would allow him to move on Ukraine. And we’ve seen no indication … that he has decreased that capability in any way. But we still don’t believe that a final decision by Mr. Putin has been made. And that’s why we continue to believe that there’s still space for diplomacy and hopefully time for diplomacy, and we support that effort.”

Pentagon Editor Abraham Mahshie contributed to this report.

Report: Nuclear Engines Could Help the US Keep Pace in Space Maneuver Warfare

Jan. 13, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Maturing nuclear thermal propulsion to maneuver satellites out of the way of attacks could also keep the U.S. apace with Chinese and Russian advancements, according to a new paper.

In the policy paper “Maneuver Warfare in Space: The Strategic Mandate for Nuclear Propulsion,” the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies argues that new nuclear engines are at least as safe as today’s chemical propulsion while more faster and more fuel efficient.

“In either case, the impact on our national security from not operationalizing this technology is far greater than the safety and environmental concerns that have been solved thanks to decades of research and testing,” writes author Christopher Stone, senior fellow for space studies in the institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence.

Stone, in a briefing with reporters Jan. 13, pegged safety fears inspired by Chernobyl-like disasters as the likeliest barrier to speeding up the development of space nuclear propulsion. But the nuclear thermal systems in question—unlike their chemical counterparts—don’t even involve combustion but instead heat up hydrogen gas.

On the other hand, the technology could unlock the ability for the military to move satellites rapidly between Earth orbits or out to cislunar space and back versus staying limited to predetermined orbits and station-keeping-type maneuvers for slight corrections. Considering how little fuel satellites have onboard, defensive maneuvering could amount to “bleeding out propellant,” Stone said.

With longer, more fuel-efficient run times than chemical engines and lower mass, nuclear thermal-powered vehicles “can achieve higher velocities, hence shorter flight times,” Stone writes.

Underlying much of the military’s space planning—its new point of view of space as a “warfighting domain”—is the fact that its existing satellites probably couldn’t withstand or avoid an attack such as by a direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon to knock it to pieces or an in-space laser to confound its optics. Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon by destroying a defunct Soviet satellite in November 2021.

Stone said the people who designed today’s satellites weren’t thinking defensively.

“The situation is now radically different,” he writes. “China has already shifted to a strategy of maneuver warfare in space that leverages space-based and ground-based weapons systems”—and by 2040, they expect that architecture to include satellites with nuclear thermal propulsion.

“Do we want to be behind the power curve?” Stone said.

The paper says the U.S. should:

“Rapidly adopt a new space force design capable of decisive maneuver warfare in space.”
Develop and field nuclear thermal propulsion in partnership with NASA and the Department of Energy.
Advance the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s DRACO program—Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations—from science and technology development to a program of record. DRACO’s low enriched uranium requires less oversight to launch (the President doesn’t have to sign off) than high enriched uranium.
“Deploy ground-based and space-based kinetic ASAT weapons systems capable of holding Chinese and Russian targets at risk. … DOD could achieve this objective by repurposing existing initiatives, including its standard missile and ground based mid-course missile defense interceptor programs.”
“Hedge against risk by deploying the [Mission Extension Vehicle] to provide GPS and other vital satellite constellations the ability to conduct limited defensive maneuvers while preserving their onboard chemical propellant.”

The paper says the Space Force, in particular, should “educate the public and Congress on the growing threat to U.S. space systems and the need to create a more robust force design that will enhance deterrence.”

Civil Agency Should Take Over Space Traffic Management, Says Pentagon Nominee for Space Policy

Jan. 13, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The push to move responsibility for space traffic management from the Pentagon to a civil authority has stalled, frustrating members of Congress who want the Department of Commerce to take over the mission from the Space Force.

The first-ever nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy endorsed that effort during his confirmation hearing Jan. 13 and pledged to help Congress determine what is needed to make that happen.

John Plumb, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, called space traffic management “absolutely essential” to the domain. And in response to questions from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), he promised to increase DOD transparency on the cost of that mission, an issue Shaheen said was preventing Senate appropriators from allocating the proper amount of funds to the Commerce Department.

“I do agree that it should be conducted by a civil agency, not the Department of Defense, and I will commit to you to work to help discover the right amount of resources and training and opportunities needed to make that shift,” Plumb said. “It is a difficult shift, but I think it’s needed.”

The question of space traffic management took on renewed importance after a Russian anti-satellite weapon test this past November created a massive debris field, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter in return ships and threatening access to space for countries around the world.

That test—the latest conducted by the Russians and similar to a 2007 test by China—underscores the need for “norms and rules of behavior” in space, Plumb said, echoing a common refrain among Defense Department and Space Force officials over the past few months.

“I think one of the issues that makes space unique is that a destructive test like the Russians have recently conducted challenges access to all spacefaring nations, and we need to find ways to prevent that type of problem,” Plumb said.

The most direct way to do that would be an international treaty to ban kinetic anti-satellite tests, a measure Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks endorsed at a recent meeting of the National Space Council and one Plumb also said he supports.

But while China and Russia have co-sponsored treaties submitted to the United Nations seemingly aimed at avoiding a space arms race and destructive tests, their actions in the domain have proved them to be “disingenuous,” Plumb wrote in advance policy questions submitted to SASC.

Those treaties, Plumb wrote, “do not provide pragmatic, equitable, or verifiable mechanisms that would enhance U.S. national security interests.”

Speaking at the confirmation hearing, though, Plumb stopped short of saying he thought the U.S. would never be able to find common ground on the issue with China and Russia.

“I do think there is a need for rules and for norms in space behavior. And I hold some deep kernel of hope that we could come to an agreement with Russia and China on that in some not-too-distant future,” Plumb said. “At the same time, nothing there would, in my mind, prevent us or preclude us from pursuing both offensive and defensive capabilities to ensure that we can defend our own assets and prevail in a conflict.”

One capability the U.S. can and should build to discourage destructive behavior, Plumb said, is resiliency in its satellite constellations so that DOD can “withstand a blow to one or several satellites.”

“I think being able to reconstitute quickly and having a resilient architecture makes the attractiveness of a target much less, and I think that’s a really important place,” Plumb said. “I don’t think we’re moving fast enough, and we need to get going.”

Resiliency in space architecture is a topic other Pentagon and Space Force officials also have stressed, as plans for a large constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites unfold. The hope is that by launching larger numbers of satellites, the destruction of some by an anti-satellite weapon wouldn’t cripple the Pentagon’s space capabilities.

“As soon as you start moving out of single-digit spacecraft, the ability to stitch them all together in a resilient communication mesh is going to be a critical enabler to overcome the threats and the challenges that we face and [to] build a much less brittle architecture,” Stephen Forbes, Blackjack program manager at DARPA, said at a recent Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event.

Plumb aligned himself with previous comments from top DOD space officials on one other front during his confirmation hearing. When asked by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) if he believed there should be a Space National Guard, Plumb said his personal belief was that “there is value in Guard and Reserve support for the Space Force.”

Airmen, Guardians Now Allowed to Include Pronouns in Signature Block

Jan. 13, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen and Guardians are now allowed to include their pronouns in the signature block of emails, memoranda, letters, and papers.

The change, made official in the Department of the Air Force’s writing guide, was announced Dec. 20.

The inclusion of pronouns, such as he/him, she/her, and they/them, in signature blocks has become an increasingly common practice in the business world and helps to ensure that transgender and nonbinary individuals are identified as they desire. It also helps individuals with gender-neutral names.

The department’s change makes it the first military department to have an official policy on pronouns in signature blocks, according to Military Times. It was advocated for by the LGBTQ Initiatives Team, or LIT, a subgroup of the DAF Barrier Analysis Working Group, along with the Pacific Islander/Asian American Community Team and the Women’s Initiatives Team.

“The change request was driven by awareness of a restrictive policy that was being used against transgender Airmen and Guardians who were authentically representing themselves,” said Lt. Col. Bree Fram, an LIT Transgender Policy Team co-lead, in a statement. “It was also important for many individuals often confused as being a different gender in their communications.”

According to an Air Force press release, official signature blocks should include name, rank, service affiliation, duty title, organization name, phone numbers, and social media contact information. Pronouns are now authorized but not required and should be placed immediately after the name in parentheses or on a separate line within the signature block.

“An inclusive force is a mission-ready force, and I’m thankful to the LGBTQ Initiatives Team for helping us realize this opportunity to be a more inclusive force,” Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones said in a statement.

The effort to introduce this change in the official writing guide was started by Master Sgt. Jamie Hash, the other LIT Transgender Policy Team co-lead, as part of her base’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, the Air Force said.
The Air Force officially stood up its department-wide Office of Diversity and Inclusion in January 2021.

Since then, the Air Force has updated standards such as those involving women’s hair in an effort to better address differences in hair texture and density, and Jones became the first openly lesbian and second member of the LGBTQ community to serve as undersecretary. Since then, she has championed several diversity initiatives within the department.

How the SDA’s Satellite Swarm Will Track Hypersonic Missiles Where Others Can’t

Jan. 12, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

A satellite constellation specially suited to tracking hypersonic missiles could be up and running by 2025.

Director of the Space Development Agency Derek M. Tournear laid out the advantages of the Tracking Layer of SDA’s still-envisioned National Security Space Architecture in a virtual talk Jan. 12 hosted by the Mitchell Institute Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence.

Tournear explained that maneuverability has brought about the need for infrared tracking to be done closer to Earth, from low Earth orbit (LEO) in addition to the 40,000-kilometer-high orbits where missile tracking takes place now.

DOD’s existing tracking systems in high geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and polar orbit can detect the launches, but maneuverability has introduced the need to also track missiles throughout their flight, Tournear said. His comments come one day after North Korea claimed to have tested another hypersonic missile. Although the U.S. refers only to the missile as “ballistic,” officials agree the missile launched Jan. 11 is more advanced than one launched just a week earlier.

At the dawn of missile tracking, when ballistic missiles flew along predictable trajectories, “you knew essentially where … the missile would come from, and then once you had early detection”—the hot, bright plume of a rocket launch in infrared—“you could predict the impact point very rapidly,” Tournear said.

But missiles are hardly ballistic anymore.

“They’re all maneuverable, whether or not they’re fractional orbital, or even some of the more ballistic ones, and then especially once you get to the hypersonic glide vehicles,” Tournear said. “They all can change their impact point, and so you need to be able to detect them throughout the flight.”

Simply because of how heat dissipates the atmosphere, the higher satellites can’t detect the cooler, dimmer phases of flight.

LEO orbits, on the other hand, top out at 2,000 kilometers.

“In the lower orbit, we can actually detect signatures that are lower, that are essentially dimmer, than what you can detect in these higher orbits,” Tournear said. Targets become detectable not just at launch, “but you can [also] see the hypersonic glide vehicles as they’re maneuvering and getting hot.”

A lower orbit calls for more satellites to cover the globe. Twenty-eight satellites launched in 2024 and 2025 will form the “kernel” of the tracking ability, Tournear said.

But the proliferation brings another advantage.

Several satellites will be able to detect a given flight, allowing for “different ‘look’ angles … to calculate the three-dimensional track very accurately,” Tournear said.

‘Russia Has a Choice’: NATO Meets with Russia to De-escalate Ukraine Crisis

Jan. 12, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Each of the 30 NATO members took their turn on Jan. 12 giving a Russian delegation in Brussels an earful about the crisis on the border of Ukraine precipitated by Russia’s presence of 100,000 troops. But despite the scolding at the first meeting of the NATO-Russia Council since 2019, de-escalation was not promised and an eastern flank member tells Air Force Magazine they are concerned the United States will make security concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Head of the U.S. delegation Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman said after the four-hour meeting that Russia did not broach the possibility of de-escalation. Sherman also said it is still not clear if the week of intense discussions that began with a U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue Jan. 10 in Geneva and ends with a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Jan. 13 in Vienna was ever meant by Putin to be substantive.

“It was truly a remarkable expression of the power of diplomacy,” Sherman told journalists in Brussels. “The NATO Allies spoke in complete unity in support of a set of critical international principles.”

America’s No. 2 diplomat, who led negotiations Jan. 10 and headed the American delegation Jan. 12, said each of the 30 Allies addressed the Russian delegation, affirming an ironclad position that all countries must be free to choose their own foreign policy, sovereignty and territorial integrity “are sacrosanct,” and all nations must be free to choose their own alliances.

In recent weeks, Russia has called for a rollback of NATO membership, removal of missiles and troops from the eastern flank of the alliance, and a guarantee that Ukraine and Georgia not be allowed to join the alliance.

Not only were those demands dismissed again in Brussels, but NATO allies called on Russia to de-escalate.

“It ended with a sober challenge from the NATO allies to Russia, which came here today to express its security concerns,” Sherman said, painting Russia’s worries about Ukraine as an aggressor as unrealistic.

Instead, she said Allies called on Russia “to de-escalate tensions, choose the path of diplomacy, to continue to engage in honest and reciprocal dialogue so that together, we can identify solutions that enhance the security of all.”

Ahead of the meeting, an eastern flank NATO official told Air Force Magazine that he believed Russia would only negotiate bilaterally with the United States, and the NATO and OSCE meetings would not be taken seriously by the Russian delegation.

“I don’t think there’s gonna be any substantial progress,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “They came because they were pressed by the U.S. and kind of convinced that otherwise, some kind of progress in the bilateral track will not bring results if they don’t come to the NATO table.”

The official suggested that Russia’s list of demands, since deemed “non-starters” by U.S. officials, was a negotiating tactic to extract other vital concessions. Sans swift acceptance of its demands, Russia has indicated it may forgo future talks and move forward with its own plans involving Ukraine.

“My problem is that as NATO we haven’t really kind of clearly rejected those treaties,” the official said of the Russian term for the demands published and shared with the United States on Dec. 17. “Some of the Allies would just like to kind of be a bit more vague in the communication in order to keep the Russians at the table.”

Potential U.S. Concessions to Russia

Polish security analyst Wojciech Lorenz of the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw told Air Force Magazine Jan. 12 that his country is concerned the United States would be willing to give into Russian demands in order to decrease tensions.

Moscow has long eyed with disdain U.S. troops and missile defenses in Poland.

“Poland is especially concerned that the U.S. might decide to withdraw a majority of its troops stationed on Polish soil on a rotational basis,” he said of the estimated 5,500 American troops now in the country. The analyst added there may be a temptation to stop the deployment of the U.S. armored brigade combat team (ABCT) present in Poland since 2017.

Lorenz said the ABCT has helped to strengthen the credibility of deterrence in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“Even if the U.S. decided to maintain the presence of almost 1,000 troops in the framework of the NATO battle group, withdrawal of ABCT would have serious negative psychological, political, and strategic consequences,” Lorenz said. “Poland is also worried that the U.S. administration may try to stop the development of the missile defense base in Redzikowo, which is a part of the U.S./NATO missile defense system.”

Poland is poised to host the second American Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Europe after one was made operational in NATO Black Sea Ally Romania in 2016. The system is supposed to defend Europe against missile attacks from the Middle East and it is inherently defensive, contrary to the Russian S-400 anti-access/area denial systems bordering NATO in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and occupied Crimea whose missiles have the capability to reach European capitals.

“The presence of this system infuriated the Kremlin because it amounted to a permanent U.S. military presence,” Lorenz explained of the Aegis Ashore in Poland. “With such U.S. assets located in Poland it would be more difficult for Russia to turn Poland into a military buffer zone, an area where conflict with NATO could be fought.”

The NATO official believes there are nonetheless some areas of common interest with Russia, particularly limits on the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Once covered in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, repeated Russian violations led the United States to withdraw from the treaty in 2019.

A second issue proposed by the U.S. side in Geneva were limits on military exercises. The U.S. Defender series has recently helped the alliance’s newest members in the Black Sea, Balkans, and Baltic region to practice reinforcement in the event of a crisis. Russia regularly exercises with partner Belarus and its presence of 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine has been characterized as an exercise.

Sherman highlighted that the Russian troops had conducted live fire exercises on the very morning of the NATO Russia Council meeting.

In previewing the Brussels meeting Jan. 11, U.S. permanent representative to NATO Amb. Julianne Smith said any discussion with Russia must involve “reciprocal” actions

But, the NATO official said even a reciprocal agreement with Russia on limiting exercises would harm NATO much more than Russia.

“You have to exercise reinforcement of Baltic states and Russians are just behind the border,” he said. “Providing reciprocal measures will basically render us unprepared to reinforce them.”

The official added: “Those proposals have been met with a lot of skepticism in the Alliance.”

Notwithstanding continued concerns about a potential U.S. concession to Russia, Sherman declared in a Jan. 10 wrap up following the bilateral meeting with Russia that troop movements were not on the table, and were not on the agenda for the NATO-Russia Council meeting.

“We did not have discussions about American troop levels,” she said. “American troop levels were not on the agenda for today.”

Following the meeting, the NATO official said the Russian delegation was “not particularly offensive and did not walk away,” while “the Allies were rather united.”

Sherman said the ball is now in Putin’s court.

“Russia has a choice to make,” she said. “Everyone, Russia most of all, will have to decide whether they really are about security, in which case they should engage, or whether this was all a pretext, and they may not even know yet.”