How TRANSCOM is Preparing for Possible Conflicts with Russia, China

Feb. 3, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The role of U.S. Transportation Command is likely to evolve under the upcoming National Defense Strategy, as the Defense Department shifts its focus to China and Russia.

TRANSCOM commander, Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, predicted the command will need to “meld better into the maneuver force,” based on DOD’s joint warfighting concept. She spoke during a webinar Feb. 2 hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“One thing that has become really clear is that TRANSCOM has been the force that ‘deploys the force, sustains the force, and redeploys the force,’” Van Ovost said.

“Now we’re going to be deploying the force, maneuvering the force, sustaining the force, and redeploying the force,” Van Ovost said. “So what does that maneuver piece mean? What are we going to have to do?”

With Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III having labeled China the department’s “pacing challenge,” Van Ovost predicted that the National Defense Strategy will shift to ensuring “that we can meet the gaps … with respect to that particular competitor.”

While TRANSCOM will maintain its ability to “around the world at a time and place of our choosing,” she said the command also is considering its Pacific posture.

In a “much, much larger theater than even [U.S. Central Command],” she said TRANSCOM is already thinking about, “What will we have to move? What will be there? … How do we build up our allies and partners in that area and shore up some capability? And should we have to go from competition into conflict, what are we going to be moving and where?”

Van Ovost characterized the federal “whole-of-government, whole-of-allies” approach to dealing with Russia, in its surrounding of Ukraine at the moment, as demonstrating “integrated deterrence in action.”

“You’re seeing Department of State, Department of the Treasury. You’re seeing Commerce. You’re seeing sanctions. You’re seeing Congress,” Van Ovost said. “You’re seeing, again, the Department of Defense, all the services, NATO, and our bilateral partners—and you’re seeing us all moving towards a sort of unified objective, unified actions, to achieve objectives of, in this case, Russian deescalation and bringing them to the diplomatic table.”

But she’s also planning for other scenarios.

Part of the command’s job, “especially right now,” is to prepare “for all those ‘what ifs,’” Van Ovost said. With regards to Russia, “There’s an Atlantic portion of that. There’s also a Pacific portion of that,” she said. At the same time, “I think about … our ability to see and counteract Russian activities coming from the Arctic.”

It’s a juggling act, but “when we think about the problem set that’s going on right now, that’s exactly what we’re doing in the background.”

New NDIA Survey Gives “F” Grade to Defense Business Climate

Feb. 2, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The health and readiness of the U.S. defense industrial base business climate got its first failing grade in an annual assessment done by the National Defense Industrial Association and the Govini statistical data company, with key setbacks due to continuing disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The data in the report lags the current situation by a year, and so conditions may actually be worse than it suggests, NDIA officials said.

The defense industrial base got a composite score of 69 out of 100, which the NDIA grades as “failing,” as it “struggled through the first year of the pandemic alongside the rest of the economy,” the organization said in its conclusions. Improving the health and readiness of the defense industry “continues to be a pressing challenge” for the national security and defense policy communities.

The NDIA emphasized that it is presenting data, not offering recommendations or legislative moves. However, organization president and CEO Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle said the report should serve as a “wake-up call” for the Pentagon and Congress to pay more attention to the conditions facing the defense industrial base, which the numbers indicate is “not isolated” from the general economy. It saw a downturn even though defense is regarded by many as a “safe haven” business. He called the report “sobering,” saying, “We can’t admire the problem anymore.”

The report’s methodology uses a questionnaire about the business environment filled out by more than 400 companies, which report their experience among more than 50 factors, ranging from overall profitability to intellectual property rights, public opinion, the availability of workforce and its qualifications, security clearance time, productivity, and the regulatory burden.

Wes Haulman, NDIA senior vice president of strategy and policy, said the Vital Signs report is unique in that it offers the only comprehensive and unclassified look at the defense industry as a whole.

The biggest negatives in this year’s report were on supply chain and capacity for surge production, both chalked up largely to the pandemic. Supply chain indices were up in last year’s report, from 60 to 71, but have fallen to a score of 63 out of 100 this year. Haulman said the one “silver lining” of COVID is that it has highlighted problems with the supply chain that were already there, but were brought into high relief by the pandemic.

“At a company-by-company level, now, you have greater visibility” into supply chain issues, he said.

Competition was down, with the lowest number of new entrants in the industry since NDIA launched “Vital Signs” three years ago; a 28 percent reduction since 2020.

“This is a risk to innovation, as new entrants represent the infusion of new talent and capabilities,” the NDIA said in a summary. The fall in new vendors slowed, but continued in 2020. It had previously fallen from 12,000 to 6,500, but only dropped to 6,300 in fiscal 2020. “An overreliance on a smaller pool of entrants may create production or innovation shortages in the future,” the NDIA said.

The report highlights “a dwindling supply base,” Haulman said, citing the previous exodus of companies and the diminishing number of new entrants. This creates “more and more fragile networks,” he said.

Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of Govini, said the U.S. government, and particularly the Pentagon, needs to “bridge the gap” to make government work attractive to small businesses and innovators.

The “worst performing” of the industry vital signs was industrial security, driven primarily by cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which “continue to rise at a very high rate,” the NDIA said.

A continuing and worsening problem is the ability to find “skilled and cleared” labor, according to the report. The NDIA noted that its study reflects conditions in the defense industrial base before the “great resignation” trend of the last nine months.

The report counts how many hearings and incidents of congressional interest are shown in key areas, and noted that such focus increased on artificial intelligence, microelectronics, and biotechnology, but decreased on hypersonics, space, and other key fields since 2019.

Overall, there is a reduction in government spending on basic research, a troubling trend because “that’s our seed corn,” said Mark Lewis, head of the NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute.

Industrial surge capability dropped 15 points over last year; again, owing to pandemic-related supply issues and “weakness in the overall economy.”

Of those that responded, 71 percent said the pandemic has had a “moderate or large negative” impact on their business, while 14 percent said they don’t think their business will return to normal after the pandemic.

On workforce, 67 percent said it is somewhat or extremely difficult to get cleared workers, with similar results for “skilled trade” or STEM—science, technology, engineering, math—workers. There was a slight uptick in the speed at which security clearances are being completed, but at a score of 36 out of 100, there is “a lot of room for improvement.”

There are also issues with the supply of raw materials, particularly rare earth elements that are sourced from overseas, particularly from adversary nations, but polled companies seem to be feeling better about this situation.

Nick Jones, NDIA regulatory policy director, said the U.S only has about 32 percent of rare earth mine production, so “it’s definitely an area of concern,” but the industry perceives improvement, as the “score” regarding U.S. production of rare earths has risen from 10 to 39 in the last two years. The sentiment about rare earth prices has also improved, from a score of 75 two years ago to 83 today.

Higher costs, many attributable to U.S. dependence on foreign supply of rare earths—“a significant risk”—also pushed indices lower, as did Congress’s chronic use of program-disruptive continuing resolutions to fund defense. Use of CRs thwarts new starts and the uncertainty they create prevents companies from making economic orders of long-lead materials and supplies, Carlisle said.

Haulman said Congress makes things hard with continuing resolutions and a slow pace of confirming the Pentagon officials who deal with industrial base issues. Those officials “need to set a strategic vision and they need to carry [it] out,” but many nominations are languishing on Capitol Hill, he said. He also noted sluggishness in the nominations process.

“Without having those folks there, we lose something we can never get back, and that is time … We harp on the fact that time wasted is time that we actually cede to our competitors,” like China, Haulman noted. “Our competitors do not have to operate under a CR” and have systems of laws that mandate the civilian economy support their defense industrial base.

“We don’t want” similar laws, but “we need to leverage the creativity” of the civilian economy, he said, and “the less direction” and the more uncertainty, the less companies will be “willing to make those investments, … or jump into this sector.” Congress should focus in this, as well, he said.

Air Force Pilot Program Identifies Six Techniques for More Efficient Fuel Use

Feb. 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force believes it can save up to $80 million per year and increase its mission effectiveness per gallon of fuel by up to three percent under a new pilot program announced Feb. 1.

The Mission Execution Excellence Program is aimed at more efficiently and effectively using fuel and will start by focusing on the C-17 Globemaster III, the Air Force’s largest fuel consumer, at Joint Base Charleston, S.C., and Travis Air Force Base, Calif. The pilot phase of the program will run through December 2022, before the program expands to other bases and aircraft.

MEEP will work with pilots, operations planners, maintainers, and logisticians to identify and encourage ways to minimize excess use of fuel, starting with six “key efficiency techniques” the department says will lower energy demand and increase readiness:

More precise fuel planning, to decrease excess fuel carriage during planned flights;
Reducing the number of engines running during taxi to only what is required for safe operation;
Limiting the use of Auxiliary Power Units during ground operations and utilizing more efficient ground power equipment;
Minimizing the time between engine start and takeoff by reducing engines running or starting the engine simultaneously;
Employing continuous descent operations in a low-drag configuration, with minimal engine thrust;
Flying at optimal cruise altitudes.

The Air Force identified these techniques after meeting with “a number of commercial airlines and freight and transport companies to see how they operate in the most efficient and effective way possible using 21st century tools,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Air Force Operational Energy Roberto I. Guerrero said in a statement.

The Air Force’s initial estimates are that the service can improve what it calls “energy intensity” by three percent. That would increase efficiency, readiness, and capability, while also saving millions of dollars.

Many of these techniques, Guerrero added, are “low-hanging fruit that we simply need to fund and incentivize.”

Incentives, both financial and personal, are a key component of MEEP—there will be transfers of “operations and maintenance funds or funding of wing priority projects,” funding handed out in proportion to how much units save on energy, and awards and recognition to Airmen and units that “show increased energy-aware behavior.”

The program will also include data collection efforts and education and training initiatives within wings to encourage more energy-efficient practices.

The Defense Department is the federal government’s largest consumer of energy, and the Air Force is the DOD’s largest consumer, making it the most energy-hungry agency in the government. Annually, the Air Force uses roughly 2 billion gallons of fuel, spending billions of dollars to fly planes and power bases.

Looking to improve their efficiency, both the Pentagon and the Air Force have taken steps in the past several months to address their fuel use—the Air Force partnered with carbon transformation company Twelve in 2020 for a pilot program to demonstrate technology that can convert carbon dioxide into viable aviation fuel, and the DOD has released reports calling climate change a national security issue and tying the issue to infrastructure and readiness.

Mitchell Paper: Strategies to Surge US Expertise in Electronic Warfare

Feb. 2, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The U.S. won’t keep pace with China and Russia in electronic warfare if it keeps “drip feeding” organizations, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

While those countries already field “informationized warfare capabilities,” the U.S. military keeps “relearning old lessons,” writes retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Ken Israel, a retired electronic warfare officer, who served as the Air Force’s first program executive for C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance).

Leaders in electronic warfare, or EW, need a substantial plan—not an “aspirational document” but one that “lays out what to do and by when to achieve spectrum superiority,” Israel writes in “Drip Feeding Improvements in EMSO Will Not Work.”

Drawing on his experience, Israel’s policy recommendations include:

Recruit for technical backgrounds. Israel suspects the Air Force produces too few electronic warfare officers—about 80 a year—who may not have a technical background. On the other hand, “operators of the future will need to understand the fundamental physics of a broad array of interrelated spectrum-dominated technologies to include artificial intelligence, networks, 5G, complex waveforms, interferometry, antenna designs, microelectronics, phase reversing phenomena, digital processing, cloud topologies, metadata analytics, encryption, directed energy, and other forms and modes of electronic warfare. He says the Air Force needs to ask the revealing question: how many current electronic warfare officers or combat system officers have written a single line of code or can comprehend the details of specific metadata analytics?”
Create a professional EW community. The Air Force and Space Force employ EW expertise across diverse organizations ranging from aircrews to academia but without a professional association dedicated exclusively for “like-minded professional experts to get together and share operational design, tactics, threat, and real-world experiences.”
Break down the cyber, EW, and ISR silos. Assigning EW officers to “key” cyber and ISR roles will highlight how the fields have aspects in common and “enhance everyone’s appreciation of all aspects of spectrum superiority challenges and opportunities,” writes Israel.
Consistently present timely lessons learned. With tactics continually evolving, EW troops in key posts need regular updates “from ongoing conflicts that involve Russia, China, and their proxies,” according to the paper.
Invoke the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. The DOD doesn’t have time to grow the “diversified spectrum expertise” in house and still keep pace with China and Russia. The law provides for outside experts to receive commensurate placement.
Add funds for advanced training. Committing to fund modeling and simulation for EW training and emphasizing battle management and planning tools will help commanders “understand their ability to maneuver in the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Pentagon Sending 3,000 Troops to Eastern Europe to Bolster NATO Allies

Feb. 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Defense Department is moving roughly 3,000 Soldiers to Germany, Poland, and Romania in the coming days. The U.S. looks to bolster NATO’s eastern flank while Russia continues to buildup forces on the Ukraine border, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby announced Feb. 2.

A Stryker squadron of approximately 1,000 service members is moving from Germany to Romania, joining more than 900 American troops already in the country. Roughly 1,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., will deploy to Poland, and another 300 members of the 18th Airborne Corps will deploy to Germany.

“The current situation demands that we reinforce the deterrent and defensive posture on NATO’s eastern flank,” Kirby said. “President [Joe] Biden has been clear that the United States will respond to the growing threat to Europe’s security and stability. Our commitment to NATO Article V and collective defense remains ironclad.”

The movements are separate from the 8,500 troops that were put on alert last week to prepare to deploy to Europe for a potential Ukraine contingency within five days. Those forces are intended to be part of the NATO Response Force, which requires consensus within the alliance to activate—which has not been reached yet.

Kirby previewed the troop movements on Jan. 31, saying the Pentagon had been in discussions with allies in Eastern Europe to provide an increased presence via a bilateral agreement. On Feb. 2, Kirby said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had spoken with the Romanian Defense Minister last week and the U.S. troops are being moved to the country “at the express invitation of the Romanian government.”

Romania’s interest in hosting more American troops has been public for some time now—Romanian President Klaus Iohannis publicly stated as much in mid-December. The Black Sea nation doesn’t directly border Russia, but it shares a border with Ukraine, and the buildup of more than 100,000 Russian troops along the Russia-Ukraine border has stoked fears of a potential invasion.

Biden has repeatedly said he will not send American troops into combat in Ukraine, and Kirby took pains to emphasize the new movements aren’t aimed at that.

“I want to be very clear about something: These are not permanent moves. They are moves designed to respond to the current security environment,” Kirby said. “Moreover, these forces are not going to fight in Ukraine. They are going to ensure the robust defense of our NATO allies.”

While no Air Force units are being deployed at this time, Air Mobility Command will be tasked with transporting the Army units.

“This is a reasonable amount of forces that Air Mobility Command will be able to transport. I don’t foresee a need for some sort of surge of airlift activity to get these folks over there,” Kirby said.

There are also currently F-15Es from the 4th Fighter Wing based out of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C, flying in Estonia as part of NATO’s enhanced air policing mission. Those fighters are scheduled to be deployed until the end of the week. Kirby was asked during a press briefing if that deployment might be extended, but he did not have a definitive answer, saying that his “hunch” was that there would be no extension.

Still, more troop movements in the coming days and weeks are possible, Kirby said. The 8,500 put on alert remain so, and Austin has put other units on alert to be ready to deploy as well, Kirby said, though he declined to detail what units those were.

At the same time, France announced it will send several hundred troops to Romania, a move Kirby said the Pentagon welcomed.

First ‘Integrated Warfighting Network’ to Go Live in 2022 for Troops Serving in the Field

Feb. 1, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Small teams of Airmen serving in far-flung situations will be able to start taking their work laptops on deployments this summer—and expect them to be useful.

The Department of the Air Force’s Chief Architect Officer Preston Dunlap revealed in a webinar Feb. 1 that the first “integrated warfighting network” will boot up in the summer of 2022. The department’s former chief software officer Nicolas M. Chaillan interviewed Dunlap on LinkedIn.

The new network is designed for troops engaged in agile combat employment (ACE) operations, Dunlap said.

“Whether you’re in a conflict with Russia or China, having a handful of operating locations—or one or two operations centers or intelligence centers—is not going to win the fight,” Dunlap said, describing ACE from an IT perspective. “It’s just too risky with too many weapons pointed at you.”

Instead, the department wants troops to be able to take all those activities on the move.

“We want to be able to break up the ability to do intelligence, and break up the ability to do operational … [command and control], to even small echelons and small units,” Dunlap said. The integrated warfighting network, or IWN, “will tie together two things that have been almost totally separated,” he explained—enterprise IT and “warfighting IT.”

“And this summer, they will become the same thing.”

Dunlap pointed out that separate systems means, “I have to train for a different IT system, different communication links, different applications, different C2 approaches. And only certain units can have access to it.”

The IWN, on the other hand, “is the composition of the equation of enterprise IT plus edge IT, and together you have integrated warfighting that allows you to be able to go to various strips in Europe or various islands in the Pacific, take that same mobile-computer-laptop-slash-tablet that you’ve got in your office—which we don’t currently have, generally, but we want to make this pervasive on the enterprise level—and that’s the same device that you use at the classified level going out to operate with in the field.”

Multiple connectivity pathways, including wireless connectivity, are also part of the design; and DOD data environments will be added later.

“So the real cool thing that we’ve been in stealth mode making is an integrated warfighting network,” Dunlap said.

Lord, Former Air Force Leaders Named to New Panel to Reform Pentagon Budgeting Process

Feb. 1, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A new commission aimed at reforming the Defense Department’s budgeting process will include former Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief Ellen M. Lord as well as several former high-ranking Air Force leaders.

Lord will be joined on the newly formed Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Reform by Eric Fanning, who served as undersecretary of the Air Force from 2013 to 2015 and acting Secretary for six months in 2015; Robert F. Hale, former comptroller and chief financial officer at the Pentagon and former head of Air Force financial management; and Raj Shah, an Air Force Reservist who headed up the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental.

Fanning, Shah, Hale, and Lord were selected to the commission Feb. 1 by the chairmen and the ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees—Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), respectively.

That quartet will be joined on the commission by 10 other appointees, selected by the Secretary of Defense, Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and Senate, and the top lawmakers in both chambers’ Appropriations committees.

Together, the commission will be tasked with looking at ways to shake up the Pentagon’s planning, programming, budgeting, and execution process. Officials in Congress and observers have frequently bemoaned the budgeting process as slow, inflexible, and unresponsive.

“One of the relics of those days gone by is the current DOD budget process,” Reed said at a SASC hearing in 2021. “It was a product of [former Secretary Robert] McNamara, the Whiz Kids, and I can assure you those Whiz Kids are not kids anymore. It’s been 70 years.”

The commission was established under a provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and will have until September 2023 to send a report to Congress. Under the NDAA, the commission will review the current PPBE process, evaluate its effectiveness, consider alternatives, and issue policy and legislative recommendations.

Lord served as the top weapons buyer for the Defense Department from 2017 to 2020, where she oversaw the development of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework, a rework of the DOD’s acquisition rulebook aimed at making the process faster and easier. She also was in office for the first portion of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created some stress on the defense industrial base.

Fanning, in addition to serving as the No. 2 civilian leader in the Air Force, also served as Secretary of the Army and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, among other positions.

Hale is a former Navy officer who also spent more than a decade at the Congressional Budget Office analyzing defense issues. He then served as the Air Force’s comptroller from 1994 to 2001 before returning to the Pentagon from 2009 to 2014.

Shah is an F-16 pilot who in 2016 was appointed by then-Secretary Ash Carter to oversee a DIUx program aimed at connecting with private industry as a technology hub to acquire new capabilities faster.

F-35 JPO Finishes First Phase in Overhauling Logistics System

Feb. 1, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The F-35 Joint Program Office’s efforts to revamp the fighter’s troubled sustainment and maintenance enterprise reached a new milestone as the JPO announced the installation of 14 hardware systems for its new Operational Data Integrated Network.

The hardware systems, called the ODIN Base Kit, were installed between July 2021 and January 2022 and replace the troubled Autonomic Logistics Information System—all “first-generation ALIS servers” are now out of the field, the JPO said in a press release.

ALIS was intended to be a vast information-gathering system that tracked F-35 data in-flight, relaying to maintainers on the ground the performance of various systems in near-real time. It was meant to predict part failures and otherwise keep maintainers abreast of the health of each individual F-35.

Instead, the system was crippled by outdated technology, false alarms, laborious data entry requirements, and clumsy interfaces. By January 2020, the JPO announced that it was dumping ALIS in favor of the rebranded ODIN.

ODIN, officials said at the time, will be more secure, produce fewer errors, and be easier to use. It will also provide improved insight into F-35 parts usage and enable predictive maintenance, driving down costs.

The ODIN Base Kit is the first part of the new system to be rolled out to military installations and will continue to be installed through 2023, the JPO said. It is “75 percent smaller and lighter than previous hardware and was procured at nearly 30 percent lower cost,” the office stated.

The reduced weight is especially key, considering a Government Accountability Office report found that the ALIS servers “weigh approximately 200 pounds and require at least two people to lift … [and] need a whole room to operate,” creating logistical challenges, especially for deployments. In contrast, the OBK has two modules that weigh under 100 pounds each.

“Recent global OBK installations mark a major milestone in modernizing the F-35 logistics information systems in support of global operations,” F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Eric T. Fick said in a statement. “This was a team effort between the Department of Defense, defense industry, and our F-35 Partners, and is a giant step forward in support of international logistics and operational management of the global and expanding F-35 fleet.”

The ODIN Base Kit is designed to run both the ALIS software and future ODIN software programs, the joint program office added.

“We’re excited about the improvements ushered in by the ODIN Base Kit in 2021 and look forward to outfitting the entire fleet with this enhanced capability as schedules and funding permit,” said Air Force Col. Dan Smith, JPO maintenance systems program manager overseeing ALIS and ODIN. “OBK feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and will save our F-35 maintainers time and operating costs throughout the maintenance lifecycle.”

While the first generation of unclassified ALIS servers are now out of circulation, other units will be replaced throughout 2022 and 2023. And OBK itself will also be updated as Lockheed Martin and the JPO look to design and develop “improved hardware for classified functions.”

The following locations received ODIN Base Kits:

Naval Air Station Lemoore, Calif.
Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
Hill Air Force Base, Utah
Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska
Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics factory, Fort Worth, Texas
Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.
Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. (three OBKs installed)
Amendola Air Base, Italy
Portsmouth Naval Base, U.K.

The Operational Data Integrated Network Base Kit, or OBK, (pictured) replaces the legacy Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) computer hardware called the Standard Operating Unit-Unclassified (SOU-U) server. The new ODIN hardware is 75 percent smaller and lighter than previous hardware. It was procured at nearly 30 percent lower cost, and it’s designed to run ALIS software as well as future ODIN software applications. Navy Photo by Dane Wiedmann.

Shared Strategic Airlift Is Focus of Africa Air Chiefs Meeting

Feb. 1, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

AFRICAN AIR CHIEFS SYMPOSIUM, KIGALI, Rwanda—Challenged by inadequate infrastructure and vast distances, the U.S. Air Force has for decades provided airlift to France and African nations to help fight terrorism, support peacekeeping, and respond to disasters on the continent. But Air Forces Africa is calling for a better way—sharing strategic airlift.

AFAFRICA helped bridge gaps of trust and capabilities between widely divergent nations in a four-day symposium of African air chiefs that concluded Jan. 28 in Kigali, leveraging the American power to bring neighboring nations together to discuss sharing air platforms, like the many C-130s the U.S. has provided to partner African nations.

“The goal here is to find ways that we can look at it across the continent and leverage the regional expertise that is so prevalent here,” U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian told Air Force Magazine in an exclusive interview at the 11th African Air Chiefs Symposium (AACS).

At the third and final AACS meeting of his tenure, Harrigian said air liaison officers had across the continent helped clarify the problem and create a shared understanding with the nations they work with. This year’s AACS, the first since 2019, identified what is “in the realm of the possible” on a continent with 54 nations and widely divergent capabilities and resources.

Symposium co-host, Rwandan Air Force Gen. Jean Jacques Mupenzi, defined the shared security challenges of a continent with porous borders that are often frequented by arms, drug, and human traffickers as well as terrorists.

“Our region is vast [and] characterized by limited transportation infrastructure, hence [it] requires effective air mobility mechanisms to bridge distances, support replenishment of troops in theatre … , and attend to humanitarian assistance,” he said in his opening remarks.

“Strengthening regional cooperation in the air domain is critical in order to respond to common security challenges on the continent,” he added.

In many far-flung parts of Africa, terrorist and criminal groups have established safe havens where government control cannot reach adequately. There, the groups can operate freely, recruiting and spreading false propaganda that decreases trust in the central government.

Air Force Special Operations Command combat aviation advisor Lt. Col. Jared Cordell said that for many of the African countries he has worked with, strategic airlift is essential to national security.

“In a lot of places, airlift is the most valuable and most important thing that they can do because it brings cargo, men, and equipment to places that need it,” he said in a phone interview ahead of the conference.

“It … brings governance to those outlying areas and shows the country’s flag in disparate and outlying parts of the various countries,” he explained. “It’s not the U.S. flag that’s showing up at a random airstrip in another place. It’s their own country that’s bringing their own country’s governance to that area.”

Finding a Way Forward

To identify next steps for shared strategic airlift in Africa, Harrigian participated in bilateral meetings with air chiefs, closed-door discussions, and a briefing by the air transport resource sharing working group of the 26-member Association of African Air Forces.

A group of nine African nations from the Maghreb and Western and Eastern Africa, along with the U.S. Air Force, met virtually six times between April and August 2021 to discuss the problem set. Regional groups including the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), both potential recipients of shared air assets, were observers.

Tunisian Air Chief Maj. Gen. Mohamed Hajem, who represented one of the nations in the working group, said shared strategic airlift in Africa will require that nations have a common doctrine and standard operating procedures.

“That’s really the vision with the program, with the planning, and we should be aware of our actual capacity and the threats and challenges of the future,” he told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the symposium.

Harrigian said the first step to accomplishing that will be to identify what command and control might look like and to leverage what exists within regional organizations.

“We kind of have a broad understanding of what the construct would look like,” he said. “There’s some really unique relationships, multilateral ones that happen regionally. And so, we have to try to pull that together into a continental view. … That’s not easy. It’s a heavy lift.”

The Maghreb countries of Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have the most advanced air forces on the continent but do not cooperate together in the air domain. Nonetheless, Tunisia is taking a lead role to promote sharing air assets in other parts of Africa.

Hajem emphasized that Harrigian’s leadership on the continent has advanced peace and security while also elevating the U.S.-Tunisia relationship.

A working group presentation at AACS found that operational-level potential exists but that agreements between senior political and military leaders are the biggest challenge. Nations must also plan ahead, acquiring interoperable assets, ensuring a reliable supply chain of spare parts, and building common practices.

“All that should be ready so that you can employ your air assets and procedures on U.S. standards to be sure that you are interoperable with the U.S. side and other partners,” Hajem said.

Botswana Air Chief Maj. Gen. Hendrick Tbuthu Rakgantswana told Air Force Magazine that his southern African nation relies on the U.S. for both training and equipment. Rakgantswana himself learned to fly C-130s at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

Botswana recently acquired three C-130s through U.S. Foreign Military Sales, but one is grounded due to the maintenance financial constraints, highlighting a potential benefit of resource sharing.

“In our regional economic community, the Southern African Development Community, we face a lot of disasters and crises, and we don’t have the requisite airlift capability,” he said. “So, it means, now, that we have to come together and pool our resources together.”

Resources could include funds, platforms, or trained personnel.

Botswana is involved in peacekeeping efforts in Mozambique and also provides airlift assistance to neighbors Lesotho and Malawi. But a true structure of sharing would allow countries to do more.

“This mechanism is the answer—we just now have to make it fit in the existing structures,” he said, such as the African Union or SADC.

“We just need that link. They just need to appreciate the existence of the Association of African Air Forces and how it can assist from strategic air lift mechanisms,” he said, noting that AACS is already strengthening trust among African nations.