Top Aces Tests Adversary F-16’s New Aggressor Suite

Jan. 21, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Adversary/aggressor services company Top Aces has begun testing an F-16 equipped with a suite of gear aimed at giving fifth-generation Air Force fighters a more realistic sparring partner, the company announced. By the end of the year, the company expects to have 29 former Israeli F-16s in the U.S., most equipped with the new capabilities, for dogfight and other training.

The first flight of the F-16 equipped with the Advanced Aggressor Mission System, or AAMS, took place Jan. 19. The company said the suite has an open mission systems architecture to allow swapping in new capabilities as needed, including new sensors.

Combined with “the power and avionics of the F-16,” the AAMS suite “provides the most realistic and cost-effective training solution available to pilots flying fifth-generation fighters such as the F-22 or F-35,” Top Aces president Russ Quinn said in a press release.

Top Aces owns 29 ex-Israeli air force F-16s, of which eight are in the U.S. and four more will arrive in “the next few weeks,” with the remaining 17 to arrive later this year, a company spokesperson said. The company has government approval to bring all 29 to the U.S. and to equip “at least half of them” with the AAMS within this year, she said.

The AAMS comprises an active, electronically-scanned array radar (AESA); a helmet-mounted cueing system; technical datalink; infrared search and track (IRST) system; “high fidelity weapon simulation, allowing accurate replication of adversary tactics”; an advanced electronic attack pod for passive radio-frequency detection capabilities; and “an array of tactical functions coordinating” these systems “to provide a spectrum of realistic adversary effects,” the company said.

Top Aces declined to identify the suppliers of the specific systems, such as the radar and helmet, because of proprietary concerns. Top Aces is one of a number of companies providing adversary/aggressor services to the U.S. Air Force and Navy and other nations.

“We are not currently able to disclose” who made the systems in the AAMS suite, the company said through a spokesperson, but “the AESA, helmet and datalink systems are all modern, fielded and proven systems fully compatible with US systems and have demonstrated significant technical capabilities ideal for the adversary role.” The company’s F-16s are cleared “to carry numerous fielded [electronic warfare] pods, including the ALQ-119, ALQ-131, ALQ-184 and ALQ-188.”

The spokesperson said the AAMS suite is already flying on several of its seven A-4 Skyhawks providing aggressor services to the German air force “and other European customers for advanced airborne training.” Another 14 will be equipped with the AAMS and are in or en route to the U.S.

The AAMS was installed in the Top Aces F-16 by M7 Aerospace of San Antonio, Texas, which is owned by Elbit Systems of America.

“The plug-and-play nature of our AAMS … allows for the addition of new and emerging sensors well into the future,” Quinn said. This “provides the flexibility to upgrade our F-16s and meet the needs of the Air Force for years to come.”

In late 2019, the Air Force awarded $6.4 billion worth of indefinite quantity/indefinite delivery adversary air (ADAIR) contracts, which run through 2024, to seven companies, including Top Aces. The companies are to provide “realistic and challenging adversary air threats and close air support threats,” the Pentagon said at the time. Eight bids were received. The Air Force considers the commercial ADAIR mission to still be an experiment to find out if it can free up frontline fighters for real-world missions that would otherwise be used for adversary training—and save money doing so.

“All capabilities we are bringing meet or exceed those specified in the IDIQ requirements for Category C (Advanced) capabilities,” the company said.

Top Aces operates what it claims to be the “largest fleet of commercially operated fighter aircraft in the world,” numbering among its assets the A-4, the Dassault Alpha Jet, and the Bombardier Learjet 35; and it is “the first company … to acquire the supersonic F-16.”

More Eyes on GEO: Space Force Adds Two Space Surveillance Satellites

Jan. 21, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Two satellites launched by the Space Force set forth to geosynchronous Earth orbit Jan. 21 to join a constellation of four others surveilling the high satellite belt.

The Space Force mission USSF-8 launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., with the Northrop Grumman-built satellites, which are part of the Space Force’s Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program.

The first two GSSAP satellites launched in 2014 and, orbiting at about 35,970 kilometers (22,300 miles) in altitude, went into operation the next year, followed by two more that went into operation in 2017. According to information from the former Air Force Space Command, which became part of the Space Force, the satellites could perform rendezvous and proximity operations, meaning they could maneuver near other objects for a closer look.

“These next two satellites will add to that capability and enable us to understand more completely things that occur in the geosynchronous orbit,” said Space Force Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, who commands the service’s Space Operations Command, in the statement. “It’s a key piece in the puzzle for space domain awareness.”

Collecting data for the National Space Defense Center and “other national users” will “enhance our ability to navigate freely and safely within the GEO belt” while helping to better understand the “ever evolving state of affairs” there, the statement said.

The information helps in tracking other satellites.

The commander of U.S. Space Command, Army Gen. James H. Dickinson, differentiated space domain awareness from space situational awareness in an interview with reporters in August 2021.

Space situational awareness is more simply “reporting on where something is in space—characterizing it that way,” Dickinson explained. Space domain awareness “is a little bit more complicated,” requiring observers to try to understand and assign motive, “the ‘why’—the intent—behind having something in space and where it is.”

DOD ‘Teeing Up Options’ to Reassure NATO Allies if Russia Invades Ukraine

Jan. 21, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

As the U.S. continues to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Russia over its troop buildup on the Ukraine border, the Defense Department is looking into what capabilities it will need to reassure NATO allies if Russia does launch an invasion, its top spokesperson said Jan. 21.

In a Pentagon press briefing, John F. Kirby described the efforts to dissuade Russia from an invasion of Ukraine as a “whole of government” and “international community” effort. Within that effort, DOD has a particular job.

“We’re going to make sure that we have options ready to reassure our allies, particularly on NATO’s eastern flank, if there’s another incursion,” Kirby said. “And if they need that reassurance, if they need their capabilities to be bolstered, we’re going to do that. And we’re going to make sure that we’re ready to do that.”

Over the past several months, more than 100,000 Russian troops have flowed to the western part of the country, massing all along the Ukrainian border, along with a sizable fleet of ships in the Black Sea.

President Joe Biden said in early December he does not plan to send U.S. troops to Ukraine to defend against or deter a Russian invasion. At the same time, he warned that an invasion would cause the U.S. to “reinforce our presence in NATO countries to reassure particularly those on the eastern front.”

NATO allies in the region, for their part, have said they want an increased NATO and U.S. presence to deter Russia. But Kirby indicated Jan. 21 that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has not received any “specific asks” from allies.

Should those requests come, though, DOD will be ready, Kirby said.

“Some of those capabilities can come right from inside the European Command area of responsibility, or even from the States,” said Kirby. “Our job is to tee up options. Our job is to make sure that we’re ready in case our allies need us, and so the Secretary continues to look at all those options before him.”

While the U.S. is not planning to deploy combat troops to Ukraine, it is set to provide military aid to the Ukrainians. The Associated Press reported that the State Department is providing some $200 million in defensive military equipment.

What exactly or how much equipment is still unclear—Kirby deferred to the State Department when asked, and the State Department referred Air Force Magazine to a department fact sheet that describes the military aid the U.S. has provided Ukraine over the past several years, including “High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, secure communications, satellite imagery and analysis support, counter-battery radars, night vision devices and thermal scopes, sniper rifles, and equipment to support military medical treatment and combat evacuation procedures.”

At the same time, the U.S. has granted approval to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to send American-made weapons to Ukraine, according to a joint release from the nations’ defense ministries. Specifically, Estonia is sending Javelin anti-armor missiles, while Latvia and Lithuania are sending Stinger anti-aircraft missiles

Meanwhile, the U.S. is set to take part in a NATO military exercise, Neptune Strike 22, starting Jan. 24 and running through Feb. 4, Kirby announced. The Truman Carrier Strike Group, highlighted by the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, will be placed under NATO operational control for the exercise, “to test … really a wide range of maritime capabilities that we want to make sure we continue to improve,” Kirby said.

The exercise has been planned since 2020, Kirby added, and planners took into account the current situations in Ukraine and in the Mediterranean before deciding to proceed with it.

“The exercise itself is not designed against the kinds of scenarios that might happen with respect to Ukraine,” Kirby said.

DOD’s Research and Engineering Priorities Focus on Contested Areas

Jan. 20, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon’s head of research and engineering is prioritizing technologies that can penetrate and operate inside highly contested enemy territory. Top among the tech priorities are artificial intelligence and autonomy.

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, also said the time is now to create the technology and standards for “6G and 7G,” which will advance beyond today’s state of the art for cyber connectivity.

Shyu told the Potomac Officer’s Club on Jan. 19 that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III charged her with finding ways to operate within contested regions and to penetrate “highly defended areas.”

“To do that I believe that we need a trusted AI and trusted autonomy, [and] to be able to operate without GPS,” she said, adding that she wants companies to be able to develop the means to operate “a whole wave” of unmanned systems in contested battle space. Hand in hand with that will be disparate platforms “able to network, and command and control and talk to each other.”

Shyu made the remarks as the final draft of a document stating her tech priorities was being reviewed; she forecast its release the week of Jan. 17 and told the audience they could “hold your breath” for it.

Shyu told defense reporters Jan. 13 that the priorities include AI, integrated networks, hypersonics, and microelectronics. Other of her tech priorities include modular open systems, she said, with an automatic ability to connect with other systems. She will seek commercial, off-the-shelf systems wherever possible both for cost and speed, “rather than designing exquisite systems. … We have to pivot much faster.” She will also move to adapt commercial space technology to military applications.

Shyu has received pressure from Capitol Hill, she said, to address the fact that “70 percent of our chips come from Asia,” which “poses a supply chain risk.” The lawmakers want her to “onshore” those manufacturing capabilities. She previously said she would work with the Department of Commerce and chip foundry companies on this initiative.

To help with intelligence, Shyu said she’s also looking into sensing capabilities connected to artificial intelligence and “integrating sensing systems in cyber.”

Another initiative will be making defense systems easier to use in order to reduce training time and improve operator proficiency. Making machine interfaces more intuitive will be another technology push, she said.

Hypersonics

Accelerating hypersonics is on the list of tech priorities.

“We started this activity back in the ‘90s,” Shyu said, but “had a lot of starts and stops.” That focus has been renewed, but “I would say we’re running a little behind” competitors in other countries. “I do know that we’re paying a lot of attention trying to accelerate the activities within the hypersonics world.”

Shyu said Austin has a particular interest in hypersonics, but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Jan. 19 that the Air Force shouldn’t over-emphasize the technology compared with more cost-effective munitions.

Shyu said that despite delays in hypersonic programs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting supply chain issues, “we’re still putting the pedal to the metal and not easing up on the goals.” The Army and Navy are “on track this year to do a full stack flyout” of the booster and glide body, and “will be fielding it this year,” Shyu said. “I’m very happy with what the Army and Navy [are] doing.” She did not comment on the Air Force’s Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) hypersonic missile program.

Lasers, Quantum, Materials

After “30 years” of effort, Shyu said the U.S. is “finally at the cusp of developing laser technology” for offensive military applications, saying that both the Army and Navy are fielding laser systems.

“We’re also developing high-power microwave systems, as well,” she said.

Shyu suggested that quantum computing is on her list. While about 100 U.S. companies are pursuing quantum computing, China is nearing its goal of having 2,000 “quantum computer researchers. So, they’re close … and we must not take our eyes off that.” Her office is also interested in quantum sensing and quantum communications.

Noting that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency last year demonstrated the ability to “develop a helicopter landing pad within 48 hours in Guam,” Shyu said this will be a key enabler for areas “like contested logistics.”

In materials, Shyu said she’s interested in advanced alloys and structures that can handle the intense heat of hypersonic flight yet are stronger but lighter in weight than the materials available today. This, too, will reduce the strain on the logistics enterprise, she said. She is also interested in materials that can “potentially change [their] properties.”

5G and Beyond

Shyu said it’s time for “Next-G … beyond 5G.” She said she doesn’t want the U.S. to “take our eye off the ball and play catch-up,” then have to adapt to another country’s standard. The U.S. should create that new standard, she said.

“So, I’m interested in making sure we’re developing technologies on 6G and 7G.”

She noted that the Defense Department is doing an experiment with 5G at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, “making sure we can field 5G and not interfere with the military communications … and radar systems.”

Labs and Testing Infrastructure

Shyu said she’s been tasked by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks to assess the health of the department’s and individual services’ laboratory and test infrastructure. “We’ll be giving a presentation … at the end of this month” on shortfalls and what “we need to invest in,” Shyu said.

In later questions and answers, Shyu said the shortfall in lab infrastructure amounts to about $5 billion and that she’s looking for ways to take advantage of private, industry, or university capabilities in order to put money toward the “most critical” gaps in test infrastructure.

Rationalizing Innovation Hubs

Shyu said it’s become “very, very difficult to figure out what we’ve gotten for our money” through an array of small-business and reach-out organizations tasked with soliciting innovations from small businesses. She’s been tasked to rationalize “over 20 different innovative organizations,” such as AFWERX, SOFWERX, and the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.

“We’re trying to get a better understanding of what their roles and responsibilities and missions are” with the goal of knowing “what has been procured, … the budget, … the processes they’re going through to select contractors,” and the capabilities of the products and services being developed. Another objective is to create links on government websites that will direct companies how best to connect with the organizations that can make use of their innovations.

She also needs “a mechanism for me to track” where these innovation projects are and whether the businesses are transitioning to Tier 2, 3, or 4 suppliers.

“If we don’t have a contracting mechanism with them by then, it’s very hard to pull” an idea into becoming a program of record, she said.

Joint Experiments

Another “push” area within the tech priorities is the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve aimed at joint experimentation, Shyu said.

“We are initiating two different ‘sprints’ per year that will start in FY ’23,” with the intent of moving prototypes “into rapid experimentation to fulfill a joint operational gap,” she said. These have been chosen in coordination with the Joint Staff and will draw on “200 white papers” from across the services, of which some 30 have been selected as having the most merit “and can close the capability gaps.”

These initiatives address four “scenarios,” she said, without giving more details, because they are classified. She said her office is working with regional combatant commanders “responsible for a particular scenario.” Shyu said Gen. John E. Hyten, recently retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and head of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, was “very excited” about this activity because “it was the first time fulfilling a COCOM’s capability shortfall at the joint level rather than a service-specific shortfall,” she noted.

Air Combat Command Designates Five ‘Lead Wings’

Jan. 20, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Combat Command has designated five units to serve as “lead wings” as the Air Force looks to overhaul its force generation model and pivot to strategic competition with China and Russia.

The five wings, scattered from Idaho to Georgia, will be designated to “rapidly generate combat power as a deployed force,” ACC commander Gen. Mark D. Kelly said in a Jan. 5 memo.

The five wings are:

4th Fighter Wing, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.
23rd Wing, Moody AFB, Ga.
55th Wing, Offutt AFB, Neb.
355th Wing, Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.
366th Fighter Wing, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho

The lead wing structure has been discussed for more than a year. In the fall of 2020, then-commander of the 15th Air Force, Maj. Gen. Chad Franks, told reporters that the concept involved individual squadrons being assigned to wings, sometimes not the wing it reports to normally, and the wings training together in anticipation of a large-scale conflict that would require massive deployments.

In May 2021, ACC established a task force to work on how the air combat forces would train and prepare for a high-end fight. Part of the task force’s focus touched on the lead wing construct, folding it under the larger concept of agile combat employment in which multi-capable Airmen deploy to remote locations in small teams to make the Air Force less vulnerable.

The lead wing concept “further refines Agile Combat Employment and Multi-Capable Airmen concepts,” Kelly said in his memo.

“This shift takes us from a reactive force optimized for counter-insurgency ops over the past 20 years in permissive environments, to wings ready to deploy as high-performing, task-organized combat teams, and operate in a contested environment with joint and coalition partners,” Kelly said in a statement.

Kelly also designated five wings as “Lead Wings in Extremis” to provide support when additional forces are required for a lead wing. Those five are:

1st Fighter Wing, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.
20th Fighter Wing, Shaw AFB, S.C.
325th Fighter Wing, Tyndall AFB, Fla.
388th Fighter Wing, Hill AFB, Utah
633rd Air Base Wing, JB Langley-Eustis, Va.

ACC is still working to determine “required force elements and organizational structures” for the new lead wings, it said, but experiments and exercises are planned in 2022 to test the new structure.

Newest Air Force Software Factory Aims to Help AFRL, Attritable Aircraft Programs

Jan. 20, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force stood up its first software factory, Kessel Run, in 2017 with the aim of coding just like the commercial tech industry.

Five years later, the department has 17 different software factories, each focused on developing in-house products for different missions. The newest, Hangar 18, wants to help with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s digital transformation and to contribute to its low-cost attritable aircraft program, the new factory’s director said in an interview.

Then-chief software officer for the Air Force Nicolas M. Chaillan officially designated Hangar 18, based out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, back in September 2021. But the spark for the factory’s creation started months earlier.

Matthew Jacobsen, a member of AFRL’s HyperThought development team, was talking with an old colleague, Tim Strange, when Strange asked a simple question about the various software teams that call Wright-Patterson home.

“‘You guys have so much success as an individual team, through all these other teams. And … what would a collaboration look like?’” Jacobsen recalled Strange saying. “So he and I worked together. And he helped us bring together a bunch of teams from around Wright-Patt,” including from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, from AFRL’s Aerospace Systems and Sensors directorates, and from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

None of the assembled teams had any experience with a software factory. But in talking, leaders identified Jacobsen’s team within the AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate and AFIT’s Cybersecurity Technical Center of Excellence as two that had the right focus and experience.

“We spent a week whiteboarding out who’s doing what and who’s forward leaning enough to do this crazy thing called a software factory,” Jacobsen said.

Rather than seeking recognition as a software factory right away, the teams decided to take time and determine what kinds of projects they hoped to take on. Throughout the summer of 2021, they met and worked to draft an OKR—Objectives and Key Results—document, similar to a charter.

“We spent the summer with our teams in front of whiteboards saying, ‘What are we really good at? What are our core competencies? What can you bring to the table, and who do we want to target inside this market?’” Jacobsen said.

Those questions led to a clear answer: ”Our target market is digital engineering,” Jacobsen said. Digital engineering involves building continuously evolving digital models instead of using blueprints.

More specifically, Hangar 18’s leaders wanted to get involved in one program in particular.

“When we set out to do this, we said we want the attritables program to really benefit from what we’re working on,” Jacobsen said.

AFRL has been working on low-cost attritable aircraft for months now, describing it as an Off-Boarding Sensing Station unmanned aerial system and awarding contracts to General Atomics and Kratos. And as part of that program, Jacobsen said, leaders have tried to embrace some of the principles espoused by former Air Force acquisition czar Will Roper, who advocated for the service to own the underlying data and technology stacks in acquisition programs.

“We have key stakeholders in AFRL who are paying a lot of money for technology development, but they’re not sure how to get their arms around the data,” Jacobsen said. “They know they need to. They have great instincts where that’s concerned. They say, ‘We know there’s a lot of value in not just the physical product here and the manufacturing process, but also all the supporting data. So they turned to us and they said, ‘We need help with curation. We need help with modeling. We need help with exchange. We need help with preserving this whole digital footprint for OBSS. Can you do that?’”

For Hangar 18, that has meant integrating systems to ensure data can be easily transformed and shared as needed, using principles that Chaillan promoted as part of the software factory model, such as agile software development and DevSecOps, Jacobsen said.

Attritables aren’t the only project for the new factory, however. Hangar 18 has also been tasked with serving as the “execution arm” for the data line of efforts in AFRL’s digital transformation initiative. And as part of that process, the new organization did encounter some speed bumps.

“There’s no question that I think we faced a lot of skepticism early on—you know, yet another campaign or effort in the digital space,” Jacobsen said.

Hangar 18, though, already has two “government-owned, really high quality, production-grade systems living in cloud technologies” in its portfolio—Avolve, first developed by the Cybersecurity Technical Center of Excellence as a content-sharing platform for educational materials for air, space, and military professionals; and HyperThought, developed by AFRL as a content management system to “make data FAIR” (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable).

And over time, the factory has engaged in other projects to boost its value as a “force multiplier,” Jacobsen said, such as serving as a third-party watchdog and teacher for other parts of AFRL looking to develop software platforms.

List of Air Force Software Factories

BESPIN, Montgomery, Ala.
Blue Sky, Warner Robbins, Ga.
Conjure, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.
Corsair Ranch, Tuscon, Ariz.
Hangar 18, Dayton, Ohio
Kessel Run, Boston, Mass.
Kobayashi Maru, Los Angeles
LevelUp, San Antonio
N2X Pathfinder, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Red 5, Langley, Va.
Rogue Blue, Omaha, Neb.
Scorpion Camp, Oklahoma City, Okla.
Ski CAMP, Hill Air Force Base, Utah
SoniKube, Hill Air Force Base, Utah
Space CAMP, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Thunder CAMP, Oklahoma City, Okla.
Tron, Oahu, Hawaii

National Guard Has ‘Huge Problem’ in Addressing Sexual Assault, Lawmaker Says

Jan. 20, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Combatting sexual assault and harassment in the ranks presents a “huge problem” for the National Guard, a top lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee warned Jan. 19.

Questioning National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson during a military personnel subcommittee hearing on the topic, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), chair of the panel, added that she had “some serious concerns” over the Guard’s ability to protect Airmen and Soldiers from harassment and assault if state officials fail to do so.

At the heart of Speier’s concerns is the process by which the Guard investigates allegations of assault and harassment. Any allegations are first referred to local law enforcement, Hokanson told lawmakers. Then, if the local authorities decline to pursue the case, the state’s adjutant general can request that the Bureau’s Office of Complex Investigations conduct an investigation.

The OCI, however, is “not a criminal investigative organization,” Brig. Gen. Charles M. Walker, director of the office, told the subcommittee. “We provide administrative investigations as a backstop so the victims and the National Guard will have an opportunity to address sexual violence against its members and to remove those within our ranks who may be perpetrators, in administrative contexts.”

OCI investigations are also complicated by the fact that different states have different military laws outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice, creating a web of different standards to consider.

“Because there are changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, each of the states that have a state code of military justice may or may not make changes as quickly as those adjust,” Hokanson said. “And so we really rely on our OCI as they go out to investigate to really look at the State Code of Military Justice and how it applies.”

What troubled Speier most, though, was the power adjutant generals hold over the investigative process.

“In many respects, what’s going on in the National Guard is what went on in the military, when it was up to the chain of command to make a determination as to whether or not to pursue a sexual assault case,” Speier said. “And we found out that for a number of reasons, they chose not to do that, and [an adjutant general] who has a number of sexual assault cases that occur under their command [may] become loath to report them, or seek assistance of OCI, for fear that it might reflect poorly on them. And sometimes they are the assaulter.”

The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act included an update of the UCMJ, taking the decision to prosecute certain crimes such as rape, sexual assault, murder, and kidnapping from the chain of command. The bill follows up on the Pentagon’s own report from its independent review commission on sexual assault in the military, which included 82 different recommendations.

Implementing these changes and recommendations across the network of 54 different states, territories, and Washington D.C., however, is taking time. Hokanson told lawmakers that more than six months after the IRC issued its recommendations, the National Guard Bureau had yet to implement any, citing a lack of resources.

Still, Hokanson expressed confidence that “I have all the authorities I need to work with the states to make sure that they follow the service guidance.”

Speier was seemingly unconvinced, noting that Hokanson seems to be limited solely to persuading and advocating, not mandating, changes.

“So I’ve got some serious concerns. It’s $26 billion that we [send] out every year to the states. And we have no control, no authority to protect those National Guard service members if the state chooses not to,” Speier said.

While Speier expressed skepticism, the OCI has seen an uptick in investigations, Walker said, in part thanks to additional resources and changes that allowed the office to add more investigators. Hokanson specified that the number of investigators has increased some 60 percent.

“With the renewed and enhanced ability to actually intake cases, we’ve seen a jump in cases particularly this fiscal year,” Walker said. “We’re running definitely ahead of what we had historically in any year already.”

While Walker expressed confidence that his office has enough investigators to handle the increase in cases, multiple lawmakers showed concern about the timeliness, or lack thereof, to those investigations. Hokanson echoed the concern while addressing the backlog of cases, calling extended timelines “really unacceptable.”

But Walker was quick to note that some of the issue of timeliness is outside of OCI’s control.

“Everyone talks of timeliness, but I want us to think about the National Guard and what we’re doing,” Walker said. “We’ve got a force that’s 75 to 80 percent part time. We are a full-time investigative capability, but we also depend on the victim’s counsel, the defense’s counsel, and the state to have the witnesses available when we do an investigation. Oftentimes, we’re limited to drill periods, which happen once a month. So for the National Guard, three days is actually 45 days equivalent, given the availability of our witnesses and the availability of us to get onsite to do investigations.”

Still, Speier, who is slated to retire from Congress in January 2023, indicated that she won’t let the issue drop for the rest of her term.

“To the National Guard: The spotlight of Congress is on you. Take care of your Soldiers. Take care of your Airmen. Stamp out sexual harassment and assault. Stop the retaliation. I am watching,” Speier said.

White House’s Cyber Plan ‘Raises the Bar’ for Securing DOD Computer Systems

Jan. 20, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

A new White House memo expands cybersecurity requirements for national security systems beyond those of civilian government systems.

The memo dated Jan. 19 “raises the bar for the cybersecurity of our most sensitive systems,” according to an accompanying fact sheet.

The memo lays out timelines for agencies to comply with security protocols and says agencies must report “cybersecurity incidents” to the National Security Agency, which is the “national manager” of the government’s classified computer systems. The NSA will write rules “requiring agencies to take specific actions against known or suspected cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities.”

Building on the Biden administration’s “Executive Order on Improving America’s Cybersecurity” published in May 2021, the new memo addresses multi-factor authentication, encryption, and cloud technologies among other requirements. It says agencies must secure “cross-domain solutions,” which are “tools that transfer data between classified and unclassified systems.”

It also outlines when agency heads may make exceptions “for circumstances necessitated by unique mission needs.”

Sections of the “Memorandum on Improving the Cybersecurity of National Security, Department of Defense, and Intelligence Community Systems” call for guidance or rules addressing:

Cloud technologies: The Committee on National Security Systems will create guidance “regarding minimum security standards and controls related to cloud migration and operation.”
Zero-trust architecture: Agencies will develop plans to adopt zero-trust architecture, in which parts of systems that are walled off from each other require users to continuously authenticate themselves as they move around the system.
Quantum-resistant algorithms: The NSA will share with agencies information on its plans for using quantum-resistant security algorithms “where necessary” to defend against potential cyberattacks by quantum computers.
Framework for collaboration: The NSA will “develop a framework to coordinate and collaborate on cybersecurity and incident response activities.” The framework will loop in the heads of relevant DOD entities along with the director of national intelligence and the directors of the FBI and CIA.

Kendall: Don’t Mirror China on Hypersonics; No ‘Big Bang’ on ABMS

Jan. 19, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall warned of putting too much emphasis on hypersonics just because China is advancing in that area, saying hypersonic missiles are better suited to China’s strategy and that USAF has yet to determine the right munitions mix for the future. He also warned that the Advanced Battle Management System won’t be a “big bang” single acquisition program but instead a series of incremental steps that will network the Air Force and the other services.

The targets that China is “worried about, that we present” are well addressed with hypersonic weapons, Kendall said during a Jan. 19 virtual Center for a New American Security event. These tend to be major air bases in the Pacific and naval formations. But “I think we have to be careful about not mirror-imaging the potential threats,” he said.

There was a “rush” during the Trump administration to develop hypersonics, Kendall noted, but they may not always be the most “cost-effective … tool” for the Air Force.

“We don’t have the same targets that [China is] worried about,” he said. “We have to think about what’s most cost-effective for us … [Hypersonic systems are] very expensive compared to conventional weapons. So we’ve got to look at that very carefully and decide where we need to be in that tradeoff. I don’t think enough work has been done on that.”

Kendall didn’t elaborate on the targets most compelling for USAF or whether they are best addressed by slower, stealthy cruise missiles, air-breathing hypersonic cruise missiles that would be cheaper than the boost-glide variety, or direct-attack weapons.

Broadly, he said, the U.S. goal is “having a deterrence that defeats aggression, … whether it’s in Ukraine or … Taiwan, for example.” The “core mission” of adversaries such as China, however, is “to keep us out of their part of the world, or to keep us from intervening,” he said. These are “very different operational requirements.”

The right weapons mix is “still very much an open question for me,” Kendall said. He acknowledged that hypersonic missiles have the advantage of being fast and unpredictable and “can be a valuable asset” but that the Air Force needs to better plot its path for future munitions.

“There is a role for hypersonics in that mix,” he allowed. “And I think we should continue to proceed with developing and fielding appropriate hypersonic” systems.

Bridging to ABMS

On ABMS and the joint all-domain command and control requirement, Kendall said there is no “grand solution,” noting there will be bridging solutions to the eventual system. For example, there will likely continue to be some air component of an airborne and ground moving target indicator capability like AWACS and JSTARS, even though both of those systems have become more vulnerable. The goal will be a space-based system, but it’s not yet at hand, Kendall said.

“Right now we’re proceeding with Capability Release 1, as planned,” Kendall said, which is to put a communications node on KC-46 tankers. As the system progresses, his goal will be to “focus on the places where we get the highest return” on investment in the shortest period of time.

Getting to a combined AMTI/GMTI capability will involve interim steps such as “airborne components”—manned and unmanned aircraft—toward “an overarching solution” that will have space components. Because “high-level nodes can be attacked or be potentially vulnerable, … my intuition is that we have nodes at lower levels,” Kendall said. “We need to maintain continuity through [electromagnetic pulse]-threatened environment, [or] where we’re in a contested environment.”

Developing the overall architecture for ABMS has required a “fair amount of work” over the past few years, but it’s been directed toward “the premise that we could get to a grand solution. And I don’t think that’s going to be affordable or easily achievable on a timescale that’s realistic to meet our needs.” Capability Releases 1 and 2 “can be a part of all that, but there’s not yet, in my mind, a solution to that question.” Capability 2 will involve the AMTI/GMTI and various new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.

Future combat operations will be more like D-Day than the 8th Air Force’s bombing campaign in Europe, Kendall analogized. It will be necessary to shift a lot of decision-making to lower levels because of the likelihood of disruption of communications, he said.

“They’re very compressed in time. They’re very high density, and a lot of decisions have to be made in the timescale which is imposed by the operation. And it’s almost impossible to imagine that being done at a very, very high level and managing the amount of data. It’s also hard to imagine it being done without a lot of automation.” Artificial intelligence tools will be necessary to aid in decision-making, he said.

Given that high-level management of a major operation “can’t be done—you’ve got to go down to lower levels,” the question becomes “what is that level? And how do you do that?” The U.S. has not had to conduct operations in a contested environment for a long time, he said, and new thinking must be applied to cope with cyberattacks and electronic warfare in a way in which the U.S. hasn’t had to operate for decades.

Kendall repeated that the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) system is an “imperative” and that his top priority, in the near term, is getting a “space order of battle architecture … right.” He reiterated that he’s launching new-start programs in unmanned aircraft to escort both fighters and long-range strike aircraft, with notionally five unmanned aircraft controlled by a manned one. They will “operate as a team.” The pilot will “call the play,” and the unmanned aircraft will execute with a high degree of autonomy, he said. But “we’re not going to be able to afford this” unless the unmanned aircraft are “cheaper platforms” that are “attritable, if not expendable.” Enough work has been done—on the development of the Skyborg autonomous piloting system, for example, and other technologies—that “it’s not a crazy idea. It’s something we can achieve,” Kendall said.

The question is, “how much, at what scale, and to what extent. We’re going to have to work on that,” but Kendall said his goal is to bring it to “a real operational capability.” These new aircraft will be run in special access programs, but “we’re going to figure out how to do this as quickly as possible” and with the help of companies.

Right Concept for the Future

Kendall said the Air Force’s agile combat employment model of rapidly moving forces around to many different bases is the right concept for the future. But bringing it to fruition requires a number of steps that Kendall pledged he will not allow to be sacrificed for programmatic priorities.

“We need … a sense of urgency” about bringing ACE about, he said. That will mean air bases “have to be harder,” with hardened shelters and facilities. Additionally, “We have to create some ambiguity for the enemy. We have to use multiple locations and deception to do that. We also have to have some level of defenses so that [the enemy] has some uncertainty about how successful his attack might be.” The Air Force also has to “change the equation” about “how much leverage [an enemy could obtain by] … shutting down … a small number of air bases. That, to me, is probably the most immediate task on the list, and one of the easiest ones … when you think about what you have to do.”

All these initiatives will require resources, which the Air Force hopes to find by retiring irrelevant systems, Kendall said. He expressed gratitude to Congress for allowing some of the divestitures USAF sought in the fiscal 2022 budget—though “not the A-10”—but insisted that Congress not hold on to obsolete capabilities just to preserve constituent jobs.

“Change can be painful, but it is necessary,” he said.