Pentagon: 80% of Russian Forces in ‘Forward Position’; Invasion Begins

Feb. 23, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Update: 12:22 a.m. Eastern time Feb. 24.

Reports of explosions in multiple Ukrainian cities coincided with a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin televised early the morning of Feb. 24 in Ukraine. Putin threatened to levy “consequences you have never seen in history” against other countries that try to interfere, according to The Associated Press.

The AP reported that Putin encouraged Ukrainian troops to “immediately put down arms and go home.” A New York Times story quoted Putin as saying the goal is “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.” Both outlets reported explosions in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted shortly before midnight Eastern time that “Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”

Acknowledging the invasion, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had briefed Biden on “the ongoing attack on Ukraine by Russian military forces.”

The White House published a statement in which President Joe Biden said Putin had “chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” pledging:

“The world will hold Russia accountable.”

The statement promised Biden would “speak to the American people” Feb. 24 and “announce the further consequences the United States and our Allies and partners will impose on Russia for this needless act of aggression against Ukraine and global peace and security.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:50 p.m. Eastern time Feb. 23 to add information from the Pentagon press secretary, the Biden administration, and the former ambassador to Ukraine.

The Defense Department said Feb. 23 that 80 percent of Russian forces surrounding Ukraine are poised to begin a full-scale invasion, with 24 warships in the Black Sea and 120 battalion tactical groups at the ready. A senior DOD official also warned that the intelligence picture in Ukraine will get less clear if Russia invades further and that the department is exploring alternate ways to provide defense assistance to the country should air space be denied.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby would not confirm reports that intelligence officials had informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that an invasion would happen within 48 hours of the morning of Feb. 23, saying only that Putin was “ready.”

“What that action is going to be and exactly on what timeline, we can’t be sure,” Kirby said at a press briefing that afternoon.

A NATO official, however, said an invasion could happen at “any moment.”

“Hostilities are likely to break out in any moment in the current situation,” the NATO official told Air Force Magazine.

The official said there has been a constant exchange of intelligence from the Joint Intelligence Security Division, but the North Atlantic Council, the decision-making body of permanent NATO representatives, has not been briefed by U.S. intelligence recently.

The senior DOD official seconded the assessment that an invasion could happen at any moment.

“They can go at any hour now,” the official told Pentagon journalists in an off-camera gaggle Feb. 23. DOD has also learned that Putin has called up reserve troops to support a potential invasion of Ukraine.

“We do have indications that they plan to use reserves and their equivalent of the National Guard, and that’s concerning,” the official said. “The implication would be that they have long-term goals here. You don’t call up a reserve force or a guard force like that if you’re not planning to be somewhere for a while.”

Russian forces are believed to number up to 190,000 troops, with high-end capabilities including fighter aircraft, air defenses, artillery, and electronic warfare capabilities, in addition to field hospitals, blood supplies, and command and control. Tens of thousands of Russian troops have also indefinitely extended their stay in Belarus, just 100 miles from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The decision prompted President Joe Biden on Feb. 22 to order additional reinforcements to NATO’s eastern flank Allies.

The repositioning includes up to eight F-35s from Germany to several operating locations along NATO’s northeastern and southeastern borders. In addition, an infantry battalion task force of approximately 800 personnel will move from Italy to the Baltics; an attack aviation battalion of 20 AH-64 helicopters will move from Germany to the Baltic region; and an attack aviation task force of 12 AH-64 helicopters will move from Greece to Poland.

The Pentagon did not provide an update on the deployment of the new forces, and U.S. Air Forces in Europe and U.S. European Command did not immediately respond to inquiries from Air Force Magazine seeking a status update.

The new deployments are in addition to a total of 24 F-15s and F-16s deployed on air policing missions to Poland and Romania, Army Stryker units deployed to Romania and a planned Stryker deployment to Bulgaria; and 4,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division deployed to Poland.

The Ukraine crisis escalated Feb. 21 when Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the separatist-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in southeastern Ukraine and sent troops and tanks across the border in what he called a “peacekeeping” force.

Blunting an Invasion

The Biden administration immediately condemned Putin’s recognition of the territories’ independence and subsequent Russian troop movements and announced limited sanctions for officials in the disputed region Feb. 21. President Biden announced more forceful sanctions the following day that targeted two large Russian banks, Russian sovereign debt, and several oligarchs close to Putin.

Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst told Air Force Magazine the initial measures were weak, but he commended Biden’s additional sanctions.

“I just don’t understand why they came out with the sanctions on Monday, which made us look like wusses,” Herbst told Air Force Magazine. “I was very pleasantly surprised with the inclusion of sovereign debt.”

The administration went even further Feb.23, announcing sanctions on the company and corporate officers responsible for operating the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, effectively freezing a project that would bring billions of dollars in gas revenue to Russia once operational.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz blocked certification of the pipeline Feb. 22 following the Russian entry into Ukraine. Biden’s move will be harder to undue, Herbst said.

“It’s, well, not 100 percent—but, like, 80 percent—that Nord Stream 2 is truly dead,” the former ambassador said, citing Biden’s authority to waive sanctions in the future.

Herbst, now senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, has observed Putin’s brinkmanship for years and studied closely his most recent military buildup and noticed his “unwillingness to pull the trigger.”

“Putin thus far has been a calculating and relatively cautious risk taker,” Herbst said, noting that Putin has backed away from his own ultimatums and deadlines.

“The big invasion that the administration has been hyping—and I assume that’s based upon real intelligence—is still something which is outside of Putin’s modus operandi,” Herbst added.

Then Putin acted differently.

On Feb. 21, in a speech that launched the military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin rejected Ukraine’s territorial integrity in “very belligerent rhetoric and arguments.”

“Maybe he isn’t the old Putin,” Herbst said. “Maybe now he’s willing to just pull the tablecloth off the table.”

Spark Tank Finalists: Delivering Blood by UAV to ‘Bridge That Last Tactical Mile’

Feb. 23, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Department of the Air Force’s annual Spark Tank competition takes place March 4, when six teams will take to the stage at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. Teams will pitch their ideas to the most senior leaders in the Air and Space Forces on how their innovations can save money, improve the lives of Airmen and Guardians, and transform the department. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one team each day from now through March 3. Today, we look at “Blood Delivery by UAV” led by Maj. Giselle Rieschick of Air Combat Command’s 99th Medical Support Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

The “blood banker” community in the Air Force is small but vital. When things go wrong and the delivery of blood can mean the difference between life and death for a service member, “you can’t fail,” Rieschick told Air Force Magazine. “Missions get scrubbed. People get hurt.”

Yet when Rieschick deployed recently to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, she encountered a frustrating problem. A service member needed blood, and a team with that blood got within 20 minutes of the member’s location. But the blood never got there.

“We couldn’t bridge that last tactical mile … because the risk was just too great to other members,” Rieschick said. “I mean, what am I going to do, send out a Blackhawk with six guys on it that can get shot down?”

The service member survived, but the incident sparked Rieschick and her team to start exploring a new way to ensure blood supplies get to troops in need.

Currently, Rieschick said, the Defense Department spends millions supplying individual units with “just-in-case inventory”—a little bit of blood in case something goes wrong. This system has mostly been in place since the 1990s, she said.

“But if you have one guy or gal having a very bad day, that little bit of product isn’t going to be enough to sustain them,” Rieschick said. “So we suggest that we flip the script here. What if we pre-positioned … a UAV at a central location—because a lot of these teams that support one another, they have a central location that has more blood, but somebody has to call them and drive the blood out, and it gets very complicated.

“So what if, when they needed the help and they radioed it in to their nearest blood detachment center, that team sitting in that building with those products could load it and send it? They wouldn’t have to go to the flight line. They wouldn’t have to go through all these channels and say, ‘Who can help me get this blood here?’”

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to deliver medical supplies is not a new idea. It has been used everywhere from Africa to Israel to North Carolina to get supplies to remote locations, to limit contact, or to increase convenience.

In a military context, however, the idea could be especially potent, Rieschick said. Low-cost attritable aircraft such as UAVs can be sent into dangerous situations without added risk to human life. They can deliver the large quantities of blood sometimes needed in combat situations. And they can simplify what is now a complicated logistical effort.

As part of the Spark Tank competition, Rieschick and her team are asking for $500,000. That would be enough to buy two commercially-available UAVs with the necessary range and strength, as well as three range extenders—towers that can be loaded onto pickup trucks to extend how far the drone can fly.

But as Rieschick sees it, her request is just the beginning. The concept of using UAVs for delivering critical supplies can be applied in a multitude of ways, and she expects the demand to only grow in the years ahead.

“What I see is that this capability to deliver things to a pinpoint location is not going to be limited to blood. Whether you’re going ship-to-shore in [INDOPACOM], or you’re doing logistical support in COCOM … they’re going to use this for other things that are needed, because there are many, many ‘crazy-makers’ where you’re just like, ‘I just … need this sent here’,” Rieschick said.

“But we always rely on a ton of logistical support from the flight line, and there’s some things that just—I don’t need them for that. They need to be focusing on their own missions.”

And not just the Air Force would benefit from the idea, Rieschick added. As service leaders continue to emphasize the importance of the joint force, “Blood Delivery by UAV” stands out as an obvious example of that.

“We need to start thinking jointly. How can we help one another and quit thinking about Army and quit thinking about Air Force and quit thinking about being Marines?” Rieschick said. “There are times for that, yes. But in normal everyday ops, there are ways we can help each other, and a UAV doesn’t care what color you are. A UAV is purple.”

New ‘Vision’ Document Combines Space Activities of US Military, 6 Countries

Feb. 22, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The U.S. and six other countries have published a new “vision” to guide them in combining their military space activities, citing “the increasingly comprehensive and aggressive counter space programs of other nations” in a statement by the Defense Department.

Together with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the U.K., the U.S. published a three-page document titled “Combined Space Operations Vision 2031” on Feb. 22.

Identifying “Combined Space Operations” as an “initiative,” the document “outlines the initiative’s overarching purpose and highlights its guiding principles, including: freedom of use of space, responsible and sustainable use of space, partnering while recognizing sovereignty, and upholding international law,” according to the statement.

The Pentagon also cites “threats presented by technological advances” as another reason for the initiative.

Russia’s test of a ground-launched anti-satellite weapon in November 2021 demonstrated a risk to satellites—not just from the weapon itself but also the more than 1,500 pieces of debris added to low-Earth orbit and forming so-called “squalls” of conjunctions, or close approaches, with satellites.

Astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station had to take cover inside their return capsules the day of the test, and some of the debris could still collide with the ISS.

DOD leaders have also characterized a Chinese satellite with a grappling robotic arm and a Russian satellite that harbors other satellites, along with cybersecurity, as posing risks.

Advantages of international cooperation include adding what Col. Raj Agrawal refers to as “passive spacepower capacity.” Head of the Space Division of the Department of the Air Force’s International Affairs office, Agrawal described “limited budgets” and “a situation where we maybe we can’t get after all the things we want to get after” during the Jan. 27 episode of The Aerospace Corp.’s “The Space Policy Show.”

“The more we work together to build out our capacity, the more we can deter anyone that tries to hold our advantage in space at risk,” Agrawal said.

He said the department wants to build an architecture of space assets, or “space order of battle, … that is interoperable with our … partners and also makes it so that any disruption of that space order of battle is a disruption to many nations, not just the U.S.”

The initiative will involve multiple “lines of effort” including:

Resilient, interoperable architectures
Enhanced command, control, communications and other “operational linkages” among parties
To “foster” responsible behaviors
To collaborate on strategic communications
To share information
Professional space cadres and training.

CSAF Releases Modified Action Orders as Progress on Bureaucracy Remains ‘Elusive’

Feb. 22, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. released modifications to his four central Action Orders on Feb. 18, looking to align them with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s top operational priorities and to finally make “elusive” progress in combating bureaucracy.

The four original Action Orders were released in December 2020 following Brown’s white paper titled “Accelerate Change of Lose.” The orders were focused on Airmen, Bureaucracy, Competition, and Design Implementation, detailing what Brown believed needed to be done to implement his vision for the force.

More than a year has now passed since that initial release, and “it was time to assess what we’ve done against what we set out to do, analyze the evolving conditions, and modify directives, guidance, and tasks accordingly,” Brown said in a statement.

“While ‘Accelerate Change or Lose’ is enduring, like any operation order, the Action Orders are meant to be iterative—continually assessed, adapted, and improved,” he added.

Brown previewed some of the modifications coming in a Jan. 6 Coffee Talk with Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass, offering only a few details but saying Action Order B, focused on bureaucracy, needed to be adjusted to “actually flatten communication [and] … to increase collaboration.”

The modified Action Order starts with an acknowledgement that bureaucracy has remained a stubborn problem for the service.

“After over a year of analysis and work, significant progress on this action order has proven elusive,” the order reads. “More specifically, current Air Staff decision-making remains cumbersome, slow, allows ‘soft vetoes’ without accountability, and prioritizes compromise and consensus over decision quality. Mired in hierarchical processes and content with the status quo, the Air Staff must adapt to mission command and collaborative approaches to address the 21st Century threats and competitive strategic environment.”

While the original Action Order focused on clarifying roles and responsibilities within Headquarters Air Force and between major commands, the modified order presses for more open communication, calling for the Air Staff to “ensure wide dissemination [and] provide clear understanding of CSAF intent” of key decisions and documents, as well as practicing “radical transparency.”

“Bureaucracy exists in all large organizations and changing culture and practices that prevent timely and effective decisions is difficult—but it starts with the Air Staff,” Brown said in a statement.

The modified order also directs the Air Staff to primarily use Microsoft Teams for unclassified collaboration and meetings, with email, conference calls, and in-person meetings as backups.

Finally, the modified order calls for “empowering Airmen to make decisions at the appropriate levels.”

The modified action sets a goal of the Air Staff adapting “its staffing processes to enable empowered decision-making” by the end of 2022, with quarterly progress assessments.

Action Order C, focused on competition with China and Russia, also underwent significant modifications, with the new order accounting for Kendall’s stated imperatives, the evolution of the Joint Warfighting Concept, and the “development of other strategic documents.” The Biden administration released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance in March 2021 and is slated to release a new National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review in the coming months.

Specifically, the modified order establishes “lines of effort” for specific key tasks and introduces more “way points” for the Air Force to take stock of its efforts and update its approach.

“The Action Order is designed to transform the USAF to be operationally superior and strategically successful relative to our potential adversaries by driving threat-informed decisions through comparative analysis and candid assessment of our relative advantages and disadvantages,” the order states.

Action Order D, focused on force design, aims to align “future force design with fiscal realities,” and the modified order calls for the Air Staff’s planners to “determine the necessary capabilities and capacity within the USAF’s force-structure needed in fiscal years 2025, 2030, 2035, and beyond,” taking into consideration Kendall’s stated priorities.

Biden Orders More Forces to NATO’s Eastern Flank, Sanctions Russia

Feb. 22, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

President Joe Biden ordered new military forces to NATO’s eastern flank Feb. 22 and began to ratchet up sanctions on Russia. The decisions followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognizing the independence of two separatist-controlled areas of southeastern Ukraine and sending tanks and troops across the border while also maintaining tens of thousands of Russian troops in Belarus.

“Today, in response to Russia’s admission that it will not withdraw its forces from Belarus, I have authorized additional movements of U.S. forces and equipment already stationed in Europe to strengthen our Baltic allies Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,” Biden said Feb. 22.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered the movement of air and ground forces to reinforce allies on NATO’s eastern flank, according to a senior defense official.

The repositioning includes up to eight F-35s from Germany to several operating locations along NATO’s northeastern and southeastern borders in the coming days. In addition, an infantry battalion task force of approximately 800 personnel will move from Italy to the Baltics; an attack aviation battalion of 20 AH-64 helicopters will move from Germany to the Baltic region; and an attack aviation task force of 12 AH-64 helicopters will move from Greece to Poland.

“These additional personnel are being repositioned to reassure our NATO allies, deter any potential aggression against NATO member states, and train with host-nation forces,” the official said in a statement provided to defense journalists. “These moves are temporary in nature and are part of the more than 90,000 U.S. troops already in Europe on rotational and permanent orders.”

The forces will be under the command of U.S. European Command’s Gen. Tod D. Wolters.

Earlier in the day, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg praised the move by individual allies to deter Russian aggression with defense assistance to Ukraine, sanctions, and unilateral defense enhancements to eastern flank countries. Stoltenberg did not, however, foreshadow any moves by the NATO alliance as a whole.

“We welcome the sanctions that NATO allies today, in different formats, have decided to impose,” Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg said NATO had at the ready more than 100 jets on high alert and more than 120 allied ships at sea, from the High North to the Mediterranean Sea. NATO refers to its northern countries with Arctic borders as the High North.

“We will continue to do whatever is necessary to shield the alliance,” Stoltenberg said, while noting that allies had promised additional sanctions if Russia continues aggression.

Stoltenberg and Biden both praised Germany’s move to block certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring gas from Russia to Germany.

Biden also said the U.S. was beginning new sanctions on Russia.

The new sanctions, coordinated with allies and partners, target two large Russian financial institutions, VEB and the Russian military bank. Sanctions will also target Russian sovereign debt, cutting off the government from Western financing in U.S. and European markets.

Biden also said Russian elites and their family members will be sanctioned starting Feb. 23.

The quick succession of events in southeastern Ukraine followed Putin’s signing of two resolutions written by the Russian lower house recognizing the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, in Ukraine’s Donbas region, as independent states. In recent days, shelling in the conflict zone has increased, with the Ukrainian military suffering two killed and 11 wounded, including five civilians, a Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine.

In the last 24 hours, 134 pieces of armament and material from the Russian armed forces have entered the Donbas, including armored combat vehicles, tanks, and anti-aircraft weapons. Officials with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who have monitored violations of the 2014 Minsk agreement in the conflict zone have been barred from entering, and their UAVs have been shot at over the Russian-occupied territory, the official said.

“None of us will be fooled,” Biden said from the East Room of the White House. “This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Past NATO Commander: US Can Deter Russia in Ukraine By Taking These 3 Steps

Feb. 22, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The U.S. can deter Russian aggression in Ukraine now with a series of steps ranging from economic sanctions to changing fighter pilots’ rules of engagement, retired former commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Philip M. Breedlove told Air Force Magazine.

After recognizing the independence of separatists in the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent in armored vehicles and tanks late Feb. 21 in what he called a peacekeeping force.

The move followed a sustained period of heavy shelling by the separatists against Ukrainian targets in recent days, an escalation that Ukrainian government forces have not retaliated against.

Russia has provided support to the separatists since 2014, but Putin only recognized their independence hours before sending in troops.

Under the circumstances, the U.S. “could put ready and capable forces forward right now,” said Breedlove, who was NATO commander from 2013 to 2016, when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

Breedlove, who also served as commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, pointed out that the U.S. had already begun to move forces to the eastern flank of NATO. Small Army Stryker units have deployed to Romania and will soon deploy to Bulgaria; 4,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division have deployed to Poland; and a total of 24 F-15s and F-16s have deployed on air policing missions to Poland and Romania.

Yet Breedlove said U.S. deterrence strategy must advance in the face of Russia’s active military intervention.

Breedlove said the U.S. and NATO should move to active deterrence.

“Right now, we are in passive deterrence, and Mr. Putin is in active measures,” Breedlove explained. “That’s why I think we see, now, Russians moving into Ukraine.”

Sanctions

Breedlove recently visited Ukraine with a delegation of former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine and Russia. There, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian defense officials. In recent weeks, Breedlove has also advised senior U.S. military and NATO officials on the crisis, calling for immediate economic and military adjustments.

“In order to move to active deterrence, I believe we need to start putting sanctions on immediately,” Breedlove said.

President Joe Biden has promised that any “further invasion” of Ukraine by Russia would trigger economic sanctions, and Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby has said any movement by Russia into the Donbas region, which is controlled by Russian-backed separatists, would constitute such an invasion.

However, Biden walked back his commitment to sanctions in January, suggesting that a “minor incursion” would trigger a lesser response.

Breedlove called on the administration to match rhetoric with actions and stay tough on Russia before Putin pushes farther into Ukrainian territory.

“So, let’s have it. Let’s see it. Bring it. Keep your promise,” Breedlove insisted.

Air Defense Rules of Engagement

Breedlove said another adjustment that the U.S. must make now is to change the rules of engagement under which Air Force fighter jets in Eastern Europe fly—from air policing to air defense. This would help to better defend NATO allies and to protect American pilots.

“Right now, for instance, if a U.S. fighter is flying over Poland and encounters Russians doing nefarious business, and he’s on an air policing mission, the U.S. pilot can do nothing, nada, zilch unless he’s shot at. Unless fired upon, he can take no action,” Breedlove explained.

“They are entirely a peacetime set of rules of engagement. They have no applicability at all in a conflict,” he continued of the air policing missions. “They are dangerous to our pilots in wartime. We need to move from air policing to air defense rules of engagement.”

The former NATO supreme allied commander said making the change is “eminently important” and that not doing so would be “dangerous for our people right now.” Making the change would also constitute an active deterrent measure.

“That’s a big signal to Mr. Putin,” Breedlove said.

Strong Reply by NATO

The retired four-star Air Force general also called on NATO to act as an alliance in its troop and airpower deterrence measures rather than individual member states offering security enhancements as the United States and other allies have offered to eastern flank members nearest the Russian border.

It matters that “NATO gets its skin in the game with NATO forces, not individually offered NATO contributions, bilaterally to the effort, which is what’s going on now,” Breedlove said.

Breedlove applauded German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s announcement, in response to Russia’s entering the Donbas region, that Germany would rescind certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bring natural gas from Russia to Germany. It will be harder, Breedlove said, for European states dependent on Russian petroleum and gas to make similar decisions.

But Breedlove believes a unified NATO reaction, in addition to military signaling, are the only effective responses to deter Putin from further invasion.

Putin, in moving his “peacekeeping” forces into the region, indicated they may go beyond demarcation lines in the Minsk protocol of 2014 that quelled the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk.

“If we bring it ‘weak’ now, then we might see him expand those pockets,” Breedlove said. “I am a bit optimistic that we’re going to get a better NATO reply here than not.”

Austere MQ-9 Operating Location Offers Opportunities for Young Airmen

Feb. 21, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

AIR BASE 101, NIAMEY, Niger—Domed tents pumped full of cool air are lined in neat rows that resemble a neighborhood at Air Base 101 in the sub-Saharan country of Niger, a base for MQ-9 operations against a panoply of terrorist groups operating in the region.

Between the tents, quick-footed Airmen grab water bottles from shaded pallets as they crunch over gravel. Heavy, armored vehicles meant to protect convoys from attack by militants enter and exit the compound through cement barricades, passing security checkpoints lined with concertina wire.

Airmen cannot even see the flight light from here. To execute the mission, Airmen at the small operating location rely on a deep sense of purpose and a family atmosphere. Growth opportunities for young Airmen also help them overcome the challenging work environment and off-base restrictions.

“I’d say morale out here is high,” the forward aviation detachment commander in Niamey told Air Force Magazine on a recent visit.

“It’s always nice to kind of see that what you’ve done, results and a physical thing happening,” explained the special operator, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used. “Planes taking off and landing, coming back with post-mission intel. Yeah, that’s always good, it’s rewarding.”

The 33-year-old commander said the leadership opportunities for young Airmen at the African base have challenged him to manage both assets and people.

“It’s really working with people that makes this rewarding,” he said of a bare base where parts may take weeks to arrive, and mail takes even longer.

“Managing physical assets is a lot easier than emotional human beings,” he said. “Just dealing with people is a challenge on those hard days when something goes wrong, but on the good days, it’s also very rewarding to see that you help somebody grow.”

The distance from home and other bases, and the security and work challenges, make Airmen rely on each other. It requires young leaders with emotional intelligence to listen, coach, and help younger Airmen grow.

“As much as there’s challenges and difficulty here, it opens up your opportunity to engage your personnel more, and work through whatever issues,” security forces flight commander Capt. Andrew Cook told Air Force Magazine, seated in a black leather lazy-boy chair jammed in the recline position in the narrow corridor of a makeshift library tent. Outside, lizards darted underneath picnic tables where off-duty Airmen told stories and shared laughs.

“Even with the challenges that are present sometimes, … it forces people to lean on each other and say, ‘Hey, like, can you help me out with this?’” he said.

CMSAF Bass visits West Africa, Historic First — Senior Airman Tyler Sipe, 409th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron small unmanned aircraft system operators, briefs Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass about the RQ-11B Raven, a small hand-launched remote controlled unmanned aerial vehicle, at Nigerien Air Base 201, Agadez, Dec. 20, 2021. The 409th Air Expeditionary Group supports intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, aircraft launch and recovery elements and base operating support integrator (BOS-I) capabilities for U.S. forces in Niger while working closely with and enabling their Nigerien Armed Forces counterparts. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Ericka A. Woolever.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Joanne S. Bass visited Air Base 101 and Air Base 201 in Agadez, in central Niger, in December, braving sandstorms and oppressive heat to hear what Airmen needed.

“It was actually really windy,” she said in a phone interview with Air Force Magazine. “I didn’t anticipate the sandstorms that we used to get out in like Afghanistan or Iraq.”

The wind and sandstorms delay, shorten, and sometimes cancel MQ-9 sorties. They also increase the frequency of aircraft maintenance and repair.

“A more remote location … comes with its own set of challenges, and some of those challenges we’ve identified and we’re working,” Bass said of the supply-chain complaints that she heard.

“If I had to characterize the morale that I experienced during my visit, it very much was more tight-knit, family-oriented, where everybody knew each other. And that makes for good morale,” she added. “Most of them were all excited that they’re able to get out there and have a sense of purpose to a broader mission within their own organization.”

With just 800 Airmen combined on six-month rotations on the two bases, duties demand creativity and skills that go beyond the job description.

“This is definitely the most involved mission that I’ve been in,” said a navigator who serves as detachment commander at AB201, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“My pilots that come through training, we can have a second lieutenant that is the aircraft commander, which you don’t get anywhere else,” he said. “They will be at the controls of an MQ-9.”

While coming in with little real-world experience to a position of high responsibility provides its own set of challenges, successful pilots will control an asset on the leading edge of technology and innovation.

“You’re remotely piloting this aircraft that is in very high demand,” he said.

“Every combatant commander is just wanting more and more support from MQ-9,” he said. “It’s a great, great opportunity to get some experience, get your foot in the door, and gain skills and qualities and knowledge that will benefit you for the rest of your life.”

Fixing Spectrum Warfare Won’t Be Quick—Creativity Needed

Feb. 18, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Long neglect of electronic warfare and electromagnetic spectrum operations won’t be reversed quickly, especially without funding priority—and creative approaches are needed to get back in the game, experts said. However, there is top-down urgency to find solutions.

“I think we’re all in agreement: We’re not moving fast enough,” said Maj. Gen. Daniel L. Simpson, Air Force assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, during an AFA Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event Feb. 17. “So now the question is: What do you do? What do you go after to bring additional credibility to an integrated deterrence” while working under an interim national security strategy?

Simpson said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has rejected the Air Force’s draft electromagnetic spectrum, or EMS, operating concept—the implementation plan for the EMS strategy. Kendall is “not shy about giving feedback” and said the implementation plan “looked too much like a strategy” and lacked “hard impact, quantitative things to be able to do it. So the team is going back” with a new version, Simpson said. It’s “in draft and is working through all the widgets right now.”

Fixing EMS operations will require boosting the number of people working in the field, Simpson said.

“We have to … make up for 20 years of neglect,” he said. EMS operators “are very low density and in incredibly high demand, and that’s only going to increase in the future.” It will also require new investments that, so far, haven’t been a high budget priority.

“We’re limping along,” Simpson asserted. “There’s been no investment there.” In electromagnetic attack, “we absolutely gutted that, with the exception of the EC-130,” he said. The transition to the EC-37 is in progress, but “we’re trying to go to a platform-agnostic, software-designed, multiple-capable” system in which EMS capabilities are resident on practically all platforms.

“We need to go fast,” he insisted. “We’re two decades behind now. We’ve ceded that territory to the Chinese, and, to a lesser extent, the Russians, so we are going to have to get after that.”

“We need to put the dollars into this mission area,” said retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute, noting “there’s a rumor” that the EC-37 buy will be cut, “in an era where the planned buy is only a fraction of what we need.”

The Air Force’s 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, stood up in 2021, should become operational this fall, said Col. William Young, unit commander. The criteria to declare initial operational capability are “the three C’s,” he said: “capabilities, connections, and cognitive.” The wing is developing mission data and ‘missionware’ applications, he said, “which is a new way to rapidly deliver capability to aircraft in the same way that, today, you get apps to your iPhone.”

The wing is expanding networks and gaining “the ability to stitch together different heterogeneous systems that were never … intended to work together” but have always had “that latent capability to be combined into a composite system that gives you the tools you need to solve a particular, focused warfighter problem.”

The wing is also applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to the field—the “cognitive” aspect,” he said.

“So, if my team is able to pull all that together … that’s a positive step in terms of getting to where we want to go.”

Young added, “this is not PowerPoint stuff that’s years out … We’re doing that today, right now.” He said things are going faster because of the “alignment from the very top of the Air Force.” Kendall has made a priority of “cognitive EW (electronic warfare),” he said, and there is also a top-level push from Gen. Mark D. Kelly, head of Air Combat Command. The wing has also built a strong connection with the Air Force Research Laboratory, he said, and “that’s how we’re doing it.”

Panelists were divided over a long and vexing question: whether EMS is a fighting domain like air, sea, space, and cyber. But Young said the key thing is to “lay out a theory of victory and a mechanism [by which] to achieve that. And those ideas are absolutely in our concept.”

Deptula noted that new technologies offer “completely new and innovative ways of creating desired effects on our adversaries” and that, absent substantial new funding for EMS operations, that’s where the Air Force will have to look.

“We need to get away from … [the idea that] I need to have a jamming platform to be able to target radars,” Simpson said. “Can I get after that effect with some other means? Can I use the electromagnetic spectrum to deliver a cyber effect? That may give me some persistence … whatever the target may be.”

By having a “platform agnostic” system that is “reprogrammable” and to which “I can apply algorithms,” “we may be able to get to a solution that is adaptable” and useful both in everyday competition with adversaries as well as in wartime. They must also be “survivable in the high-end fight.”

“When I make investments,” he said, they have to meet Kendall’s insistence that they “scare China” and have a deterrent effect.

Young said one idea is to turn cellphones into jamming devices. All cellphones, he said, are essentially “programmable radios” and could be made to broadcast in such a way as to generate jamming power.

“We might be able to take advantage of the transmit capability to flood the airwaves at particular frequencies,” he said.

Retired Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. Israel, former assistant secretary of defense for airborne reconnaissance, said modern air defenses are pushing “Blue” forces “further and further back.”

“If you’re pushed back far enough, there’s not an onboard jammer that’s going to be able to make a difference …Physics is physics.” So the solution may be, as Kendall has suggested, “maybe you load up unmanned systems—an expendable platform—with a jammer.” It’s been done before, he said, and Kendall’s new unmanned escort for fighters may be the avenue.

“Sending these assets out to go ahead in a one-way mission, neutralize these key platforms that our adversaries are using and kind of blind them. And that’s what we want to do.”

But “fundamentally, the whole portfolio is short,” Israel said, “and you’re not going to be able to make significant improvements on the cheap. You just can’t do it.”

An increasing number of members of Congress appreciate the need for investment in EMS operations, he said, but in an environment with a half-year continuing resolution, “if you’re trying to recover from an era of thinning resources in this mission area, it’s going to be a hard sell when you basically have no discretionary income.” Inflation will only compound the problem, he said. Consequently, “you have to look for high-leverage areas.”

Israel said he’s hopeful that Kendall and Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, are laying out sound technology plans for high-payoff investments. But such Pentagon leadership is hampered by vacancies.

“We’re missing key advocates in key positions” in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he said. Filling that vacuum, to some extent, he said, has been U.S. Strategic Command.

Ken Dworkin, an electronic combat expert at Booz Allen Hamilton, said, “I think Congress does get it,” but “I don’t know if that translates into … effective action.”

Fifteen years ago, he said, there was a hearing to discuss an electronic warfare report, which “concluded that what needed to happen was” an increase in EW practitioners—a new “pipeline of training on EW”—along with increased investment in systems and a boost to research-and-development budgets expressly for electronic warfare. A year ago, in similar testimony, a congressman lamented that the comments were the same and wondered, if another report comes out 15 years from now, if “it won’t say the same thing? I think that was kind of a mic-drop moment.”

Biden Convinced Russia Will Invade Ukraine ‘in the Coming Days’

Feb. 18, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

President Joe Biden said he is convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin will invade Ukraine in a matter of days, unleashing what Biden called “a catastrophic and needless war of choice.” However, Biden promised that U.S. troops will not be sent into Ukraine and that the U.S. will be prepared to defend its NATO Allies.

The president and administration officials have been de-classifying intelligence and warning for weeks of mounting Russian capabilities and plans for a “false flag” operation to justify a military incursion into Ukraine. The U.S. has also sent more than $650 million in defensive equipment, including anti-tank Javelin missiles, to Ukraine while approving the third-party transfer of air defenses from partner nations. To shore up NATO’s eastern flank, the U.S. has deployed fighter jets to Poland and Romania along with 4,600 U.S. troops while continuing to press for a diplomatic resolution.

Biden said that while he was convinced Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine, Putin could still avert war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had agreed to meet Feb. 24 in Europe under the condition that Russia did not invade Ukraine.

“As of this moment, I’m convinced [Putin has] made the decision,” Biden said, citing U.S. intelligence. “Until he does, diplomacy is always a possibility.”

Biden’s remarks, delayed by nearly an hour, came after two phone calls to Europe. The first was with a bipartisan group of lawmakers accompanying Vice President Kamala Harris and Blinken at the Munich Security Conference, and the second was with a group of NATO heads of state.

Biden said NATO members are resolute in their unity and commitment to impose severe sanctions on Russia should Putin invade Ukraine.

“We continue to remain lockstep at NATO despite Russia’s efforts to divide us at home and abroad,” Biden said. “The West is united and resolved. We’re ready to impose severe sanctions on Russia if it further invades Ukraine.”

Consistent with administration messaging, Biden said Russia was already spreading disinformation and attempting to create a casus belli for entering Ukraine, including by accusing Ukraine of shelling in the southeastern Donbas region, where a kindergarten was hit Feb. 17.

“These are consistent with the playbook the Russians have used before, to set up a false justification to act against Ukraine,” Biden said. “We’re calling out Russia’s plans loudly and repeatedly not because we want a conflict, but because we’re doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving.”

While promising not to send U.S. troops into Ukraine, Biden committed to “defend every inch of NATO territory from any threat to our collective security.”

Russia is believed to have some 190,000 troops surrounding Ukraine and poised to move on the capital, Kyiv. Biden said Putin will order the invasion within days.

“We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days,” Biden said. “Russia can still choose diplomacy. It is not too late to de-escalate and return to the negotiating table.”