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

Jan. 12, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

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

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

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

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

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

But missiles are hardly ballistic anymore.

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

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

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

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

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

But the proliferation brings another advantage.

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

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

Jan. 12, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Potential U.S. Concessions to Russia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US Imposes Sanctions in Response to North Korean Missile Tests

Jan. 12, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Biden Administration has economically sanctioned five individual North Koreans, a Russian national, and a Russian company in response to six missile tests conducted by Pyongyang since September, which the Administration says violate U.N. Security Council resolutions. The sanctioned individuals are based in China and Russia.

The test of a hypersonic missile on Jan. 11 is “further evidence” that North Korea “continues to advance prohibited programs despite the international community’s calls for diplomacy and denuclearization,” said Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement for the press.

The sanctions target North Korea’s “continued use of overseas representatives to illegally procure goods for weapons,” and are aimed at countering Pyongyang’s “weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs,” Nelson said.

The latest provocative launch occurred Jan. 10, when North Korea conducted a test of a hypersonic missile, which maneuvered before coming down in the Sea of Japan, some 435 miles from its launch point near the Chinese border. North Korea state media said it was the third test of a hypersonic missile, during which the vehicle made a “glide jump flight” followed by “corkscrew maneuvering.” The missile was first tested last September, it said. It was the second test in a week—another was made Jan. 5. Pyongyang said both tests were successful, although some missile experts doubted the same missile was used in both instances.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who was present for the launch, said the hypersonic missile development is one element of the nation’s “war deterrent.”

North Korea hypersonic — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, observed the hypersonic missile test launch held at the Academy of Defense Science on Jan. 11, 2022. Korean Central News Agency.

A More Advanced Missile

Photos released by Pyongyang showed a launching ballistic missile with a nosecone shaped like a hypersonic vehicle. South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff issued a statement that the vehicle reached a speed of Mach 10 and an altitude of 37 miles; roughly half the distance to where space begins. The South Korean military leaders also assessed that the missile fired “is more advanced than the missile North Korea fired on Jan. 5,” but said they are working with the U.S. to characterize and analyze the test.

The South Korean government said its military has the ability to “detect and intercept this projectile, and we are continuously strengthening our response system.”

Nelson said the five sanctioned individuals provided goods, services, or cash to North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences, believed to be the overseer of the missile program. Their “activities or transactions … have materially contributed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery,” he said. Any assets they have in the U.S. will be frozen and no American company can do business with them. Any U.S. or foreign company doing business with the sanctioned individuals or company will also be penalized.

The sanctioned persons were involved in obtaining metal alloys, software, and chemicals, as well as telecommunications equipment from Russia.

The Jan. 11 hypersonic test came just hours after five nations—Albania, France, Ireland, Japan, and the U.K., along with the U.S.—condemned the Jan. 5 test and called on U.N. member states to enforce sanctions they agreed to impose on North Korea. The U.N. Security Council has banned Pyongyang from conducting any tests of ballistic missiles or weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command issued a statement Jan. 10 saying they were aware of the launch and are “consulting closely with our allies and partners.” The command said the launch “does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies,” but it “highlights the destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s “illicit weapons program.” It added that the U.S. commitment to the defense of Japan and South Korea “remains ironclad.” Indo-PACOM did not describe the missile as hypersonic, though, calling it “ballistic.” U.S. Forces Korea said that no U.S. or South Korean territory or personnel were at risk due to the launch.

A Pentagon spokesman added that the U.S. “takes any new capability seriously” and repeated the condemnation of Pyongyang’s testing of ballistic missiles, “which are destabilizing to the region and to the international community.”

Coincidentally, Derek M. Tournear, Space Development Agency director, said at an AFA Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event Jan. 11 that satellites in low earth orbit will be deployed to detect hypersonic missiles by their heat signatures.

At about the same time as the North Korean missile launch, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a “ground stop” of air traffic in the West Coast region, saying it was a “matter of precaution,” but full operations were resumed within 15 minutes. However, air traffic controllers were confused by the alert and told some airborne aircraft that a “national” ground stop was in effect.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command said they did not issue any warning relative to the North Korean missile launch.

Air Force Releases New Enlisted Force Development Action Plan

Jan. 12, 2022 | By Amy Hudson

The Air Force on Jan. 12 released a new Enlisted Force Development Action Plan that outlines 28 force development objectives to be completed over the next two years. The objectives are aimed at better preparing Airmen to compete and win in a high-end fight against China or Russia.

The Air Force is in the process of overhauling its talent management system to include a new force development strategy expected to be released this summer, said Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass and Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. during a recent virtual “Coffee Talk.”

The action plan outlines core focus areas, each with multiple objectives to help the Air Force accomplish its goals. The plan also includes a timeline for when each objective is to be completed, with the first round due in April and the last in December 2023; as well as identifies the entity responsible for making sure the task gets done.

Each of the objectives support at least one of Brown’s four previously released Action Orders—Airmen, Bureaucracy, Competition, and Design Implementation.

“Currently, we employ an enlisted force development system that was predominantly built in the 1900s,” wrote Bass and Brown in a letter to Air Force leaders. “While effective for the needs of yesterday’s Airmen, it does not meet the needs of today’s Wingmen, Leaders, and Warriors.”

The enlisted force makes up 75 percent of the Air Force’s military personnel. The action plan emphasizes that Airmen are the Air Force’s greatest asset, and the service must continue to invest in them and empower them through “career-long” education and training.

The goal is “to produce motivated, resilient, adaptable, agile, and multi-capable Airmen who fight and excel in Air Force, Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, Multinational, and most importantly … contested environments,” states the plan.

That’s a lofty goal, which Brown acknowledges cannot be accomplished overnight, but he said it’s imperative the service start now.

“This is about ACTION … not talk,” wrote the two leaders. “We cannot do this all at once. We will not wait to begin.”

Source: Air Force Enlisted Force Development Action Plan

GBSD, LRSO, B-21, NGAD All Face Lengthy Delays if Continuing Resolution is Extended, Brown Warns Congress

Jan. 12, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Billions of dollars are on the line if Congress cannot pass a defense appropriations bill in the coming month and instead decides to fund the Defense Department through a continuing resolution for the rest of fiscal 2022, service chiefs and top Pentagon officials warned a House panel Jan. 12.

A yearlong CR also would cost the military an even more precious resource—its efforts to modernize and counter China and Russia, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

“As much as this affects the Air Force fiscally, the impact it has on our way to change is more shattering,” Brown said. “Time is irrecoverable. And when you’re working to keep pace against well resourced and focused competitors, time matters.”

Brown said some of the Air Force’s signature modernization efforts would face delays of a year or more under a long-term CR, starting with two areas where Russia and China have built up their own capabilities as of late: the nuclear triad and hypersonics.

Air Force Concerns

Under a continuing resolution, the Air Force is unable to start more than a dozen new programs and ramp up production in several others. All told, Brown said, the Air Force would lose around $3.5 billion in purchasing power if the CR is extended through the end of fiscal 2022.

In keeping with his focus on the importance of time, though, Brown spent much of his testimony highlighting the delays a long-term CR would have on modernization.

“A yearlong CR could irreversibly delay the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent initial operating capability past 2029, the Long Range Standoff Weapon by over a year, and the conventional initial operating capability and nuclear certification of the B-21 up to a year,” Brown said.

“Additionally, the advancement of our two conventional hypersonic weapons could be prevented,” Brown added. “I’d like to point out that our pacing challenges have either modernized their nuclear enterprise and/or are fielding hypersonic systems. Meanwhile, we are still in the beginning phases of both.”

The GBSD program is already facing pressure from some corners of Congress, and the Air Force’s Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon hypersonic missile has taken some criticism after multiple test failures. Further delays to the programs could have a “compounding impact,” Brown added, “when you think about what our adversaries are doing and how they’re pacing out.”

But it’s not just nuclear and hypersonic weapon programs that could face issues under a CR. The development of the Next-Generation Air Dominance program, the Air Force’s planned sixth-generation fighter, would be delayed “by about two years,” Brown added, if the CR is extended. Improvements in the F-35 program also would be delayed a year, he said.

Space Force Concerns

Like Brown, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond cited China and Russia as key reasons why Congress needs to pass an appropriations bill quickly, saying the Space Force needs funds to strengthen the military’s space capabilities, funds that aren’t available under a CR.

“Our adversaries are accelerating. This is not the time to be slowing the development and fielding of modernized capabilities for our forces,” Raymond told lawmakers.

“We remain the best in the world of space. We’ve got incredibly exquisite capabilities, but they were built for a different domain. They were built for a benign domain without a threat,” Raymond added. “The domain that we see today is threatened from a full spectrum of threats, everything from reversible jamming to kinetic destruction, as demonstrated by Russia. We have to modernize, we have to make that shift, and we are losing time. That’s why not having a CR is so critical to us. We have to move out to modernize a more resilient, defendable architecture that can meet the demands of a contested domain.”

The impact of a long-term CR would be bad for all the services, Raymond acknowledged. But he argued it would be especially painful for the Space Force, as the young service enters its third year of existence and works to establish itself.

Most obviously, the Department of the Air Force has said that under a CR, the Space Force won’t have the funds to complete the transfer of satellite communications capabilities from the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Raymond said a yearlong CR would cut the Space Force’s budget by $2 billion, a substantial chunk of the tiny service’s funding.

“We view our ability to provide space capabilities and the advantage that they provide to our joint forces a sacred duty, and you can’t take that for granted anymore,” Raymond said. “The continuing resolution is going to impact our ability to modernize our forces, to be there in the face of a growing threat and reduce our readiness, and [it] will hinder long-term impacts to our Guardians and their families.”

The potential impact on personnel is especially crucial. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, passed in mid-December, included a 2.7 percent pay raise for troops. However, if there is no accompanying appropriations bill, the funding for that pay raise will have to come out of other personnel-related accounts, officials said. One of the most likely ways the services will look to do that is by limiting the number of new service members who access.

For the Space Force, in particular, this would be especially harmful, Raymond said.

“One of the biggest benefits that we’ve realized after establishing the Space Forces is our ability to attract incredible talent. This talent is highly technical, it’s highly educated, and it’s sought after. And they have other options,” Raymond said. “And if we enter into this delay, we’d have to do reduced accessions and put hiring freezes in place to help pay for the much-needed and deserved pay raise. [And if we do that,] they’re going to other places, and those are people that we will not be able to get back.”

Other service chiefs mentioned potentially limiting permanent change-of-station moves for service members as another way to fund the pay raise. And if even that isn’t enough, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord warned, things such as bonuses could be sacrificed next.

Ways to Adapt?

This is far from the first time the Pentagon has had to operate under a continuing resolution. Indeed, the department has started the fiscal year under a CR 12 times in the past 13 years.

The fear of a long-term CR, however, is rising among certain officials and lawmakers. The most recent CR is set to expire after Feb. 18, but there has been speculation that some Republican lawmakers will push to extend the continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year, preferring the spending levels set under former President Donald J. Trump to the budget proposed by President Joe Biden and Democrats.

On Jan. 12, however, such a possibility was criticized on all sides while Republican and Democratic representatives laid the blame for the stalled appropriations process on each other.

The difference between the Pentagon’s fiscal 2021 budget, established under Trump, and what was requested for 2022 under Biden is roughly $8 billion, McCord noted in his written testimony to the committee. But the true impact of a year-long CR would be much greater than that, he claimed.

“We would estimate that the lost purchasing power is more on the order of triple the $8 billion account level only,” McCord told lawmakers.

There are several reasons for that, he said, pointing to differences in military construction and the collapse of the Afghan national security forces that were initially slated to receive billions of dollars in aid.

“It is very difficult to get a precise number because you have to go down to a program level all across the department, but at the more general level, about triple the $8 billion,” McCord said.

That kind of loss is significant, McCord added. While a recent Government Accountability Office report found that DOD has adopted practices to manage the constraints of a continuing resolution, there is only so much the department can do.

“We have a lot of experience, sadly, now with CRs. So we certainly have some lessons learned,” McCord said. “But in general, there’s no strategy to combat math, right? If you don’t have enough money, you can’t operate the way you need to. You can’t pay the troops more … with the same amount of money and not have an impact come out some other way. So, yes, we have adapted on the contracting side, and we’re thinking about prioritization, … but again, this is fundamentally a math problem.”

Ahead of Talks with Russia, NATO has ‘Widespread Unity and Consensus’

Jan. 11, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The first U.S.-Russia meeting Jan. 10 to resolve the Ukraine crisis was widely panned as an impasse, more attuned to an airing of grievances than a negotiation. Discussions now move to a multilateral phase with the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels on Jan. 12, hoping to diffuse tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border, where 100,000 Russian troops are poised.

Ahead of the meeting, U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith said the alliance was united in opposing Russia’s demands but still hoped diplomacy would lead to de-escalation.

“Let’s be clear: Russian actions have precipitated this crisis,” Smith told journalists on a press call from Brussels.

“We are committed to using diplomacy to de-escalate the situation, and we will do so in lockstep with our NATO allies and our European partners,” she added. “There is widespread unity and consensus across the alliance on the challenge that sits before us.”

American Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman met Jan. 10 with her Russian counterpart Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Geneva for eight hours without substantive negotiation, she later said.

“Today was a discussion, a better understanding of each other and each other’s priorities and concerns. It was not what you would call a negotiation,” Sherman told journalists on a press call 30 minutes after the conclusion of the meeting.

The White House also released a fact sheet Jan. 10 outlining its coordinated approach with partners and allies ahead of the multilateral meetings with Russia, which include the NATO-Russia Council on Jan. 12 and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Jan. 13.

The document outlines three areas where the U.S. will not budge.

The U.S. will not commit to anything about Europe without Europe.
Discussions must be reciprocal.
Progress can only be made “in a climate of de-escalation.”

Smith said Sherman met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg early Jan. 11 and agreed on the need for Russia to de-escalate.

Consulting With Partner Nations

The Strategic Stability Dialogue meeting between Russia and the U.S. was the third since President Joe Biden met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva in June 2021.

The White House underscored Biden’s consultation with European partners, noting that the President has spoken to 16 European leaders and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to more than two dozen foreign leaders and foreign ministers to coordinate the response to Russia’s military buildup on the Ukrainian border; and to discuss European security issues.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley has also regularly consulted with his Ukrainian counterpart, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Valery Zaluzhny.

On Jan. 10, Milley spoke to Zaluzhny again to “exchange perspectives and assessments of the evolving security environment in Eastern Europe,” according to Joint Staff spokesperson Col. Dave Butler. Butler said in a statement to the media that Ukraine is a “key partner to NATO” and “plays a critical role in maintaining peace and stability in Europe.”

But Russia in recent public comments has been firm that Ukraine’s partnership with NATO should be rolled back and should never lead to NATO membership.

Still, the U.S. military holds joint exercises and training with Ukraine and other non-NATO partners, such as Georgia, against Russia’s wishes. Sherman and Smith both indicated that exercises may be one area where the U.S. can scale back if Russia reciprocates.

Finding Common Ground

In broad brush strokes, Smith outlined other areas of potential common ground: “the broad themes of risk reduction, transparency, arms control, and various ways in which we communicate with each other.” Sherman had said the day before that complex issues such as arms control are long, drawn-out negotiation processes.

Defense assistance to Ukraine, meanwhile, continues, although it does not reach the level of lethality that Ukraine’s defense minister called for in a November visit to Washington, when he made a case for air defenses to deter a Russian invasion.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said Jan. 10 that he would provide an update on the findings of an air defense team that visited Ukraine in December.

Smith said the U.S. continues to study the security needs “of our friends in Kiev to better understand what their requirements are.”

Since 2014, the U.S. has provided more than $2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. The annual figure reached $400 million in 2021, according to the State Department, and another $300 million is anticipated in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

In past weeks, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has spoken with eight of his European counterparts. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has made dozens of phone calls to his counterparts across Europe, Turkey, the Nordic countries, and eastern flank allies, and he has been in regular contact with his Ukrainian counterpart.

In the past week, President Joe Biden has spoken twice to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Secretary Blinken has spoken twice to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba.

The White House fact sheet made specific mention of the close consultations with NATO’s eastern flank allies, who have expressed concern privately about the prospect of Russia closing in on their borders. Biden held numerous bilateral and multilateral calls in recent weeks with the allies known as the Bucharest Nine, a group of former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations from the Baltics to the Black Sea.

The White House document also emphasized that coordination had achieved consensus on the willingness of European Union nations to impose “severe economic consequences” should Russia invade Ukraine.

Smith expressed hope such sanctions would not be necessary, but she flatly dismissed Russia’s December demand that NATO membership be withdrawn to 1997 borders and that the open-door policy for admitting new members be changed.

“This alliance is not going to be rolling back time and returning to a completely different era where we had a very different alliance that was smaller and a very different footprint,” Smith said.

Despite differing perspectives from the larger economies of Western Europe to those closer to Russia in the east, Smith said the alliance enters discussions Jan. 12 with a common vision of the threat:

“Russia has essentially been the main threat to European security over the past two decades.”

87 Airmen Now Separated Over COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal

Jan. 11, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 12 to clarify that those administratively discharged are all active-duty Airmen.

The Department of the Air Force has ramped up its rate of dismissals for Airmen who refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the department’s most recent data.

As of Jan. 10, the Air Force had administratively separated 87 active-duty Airmen, it announced. On Jan. 6, an Air Force spokesperson had told Air Force Magazine that the number of separations stood at 75, amounting to an increase of 12 in less than a week. The latest numbers mark 60 separations in the last four weeks after DAF announced its first batch of 27 separations Dec. 13.

That first group of separations occurred more than a month after the Air Force’s Nov. 2 deadline for Active-duty service members to get fully vaccinated. At that time, none of those discharged sought a religious or medical exemption, the Air Force confirmed. If they had, they would have been considered in compliance with the vaccine mandate while their request was pending.

It is unclear if any of the 60 subsequent Airmen or Guardians separated had sought an accommodation, as the Air Force did not immediately respond to an Air Force Magazine inquiry.

The number of separations will almost certainly continue to grow. At one point, the Air Force had recorded 3,301 service members across the Total Force as having verbally refused the vaccine, though the latest update did not include new figures.

The latest numbers do indicate that more than 2,100 Airmen and Guardians still have requests for religious accommodations pending with their major or field command, while 2,387 requests have been denied. At the end of 2021, there were still 8,636 Airmen and Guardians across the Active-duty, Reserve, and Guard who had requests pending—the Air Force has yet to explain the large drop in pending requests.

According to a memo signed by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, service members whose religious exemption requests are denied at the major command or filed command level have five days to exercise one of three options:

Start the COVID-19 vaccination process.
File an appeal with the Air Force surgeon general.
Request to separate or retire, “if able, based upon the absence of or a limited Military Service Obligation.”

If an appeal is denied, the five-day clock restarts. Under the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, those booted from service solely for refusing the vaccine will be discharged under honorable or general conditions.

While the number of separations increases, the number of new COVID-19 cases in DAF is rising as well. From Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, the department recorded an increase of 4,124 cases among service members. By comparison, the department had added 2,790 cases over the previous two weeks.

The percentage of service members who are vaccinated, meanwhile, is inching higher. The latest data indicates that 95.9 percent of the Total Force is at least partially vaccinated, up 0.1 percent from a week earlier and 0.5 percent from Dec. 3.

Military Families Affected by Hawaii Jet Fuel Spill Could Wait Weeks for Clean Water

Jan. 11, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 12 p.m. on Jan. 13 with the Navy’s official estimates of the number of families and number of Air Force families affected by the spill.

More than 9,000 households in Hawaii have been affected by a jet fuel spill near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam that contaminated drinking water in November. The Navy anticipates the issue at the Red Hill Fuel Bulk Fuel Storage Facility won’t be resolved for some families until mid-February, officials said during a Congressional hearing Jan. 11.

At the same time, top Pentagon leaders will have to contend with possible long-term effects from the spill. Hawaii’s Department of Health has ordered that all the fuel from the facility—some 180 million gallons—be drained and stored elsewhere until the Navy meets state safety standards. Such a move, however, would pose long-term logistical challenges for the Defense Department in the Indo-Pacific region, just as DOD has pivoted to focus on competition with China, particularly in that part of the world.

The spill at Red Hill on the island of Oahu occurred Nov. 20, and early indications are that it was caused by “operator error,” Rear Adm. Blake Converse, deputy commander of the Pacific Fleet, told the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee.

By Nov. 28, residents of military housing started to complain that their drinking water, which comes from a well located just 100 feet under the fuel storage facility, smelled like gas, with some reports of illness after drinking it, according to Hawaii Public Radio.

Tests determined that water from the Red Hill facility “contained total petroleum hydrocarbons associated with diesel fuel that were 350 times above levels that the state considers safe,” according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser. As a result, military families and civilians have either had to relocate or rely on limited access to clean water, according to local media reports.

In his opening statement before the Congressional panel, Converse acknowledged that the Navy “caused this problem. We own it, and we’re going to fix it.”

Navy: ‘Working Diligently’

That fix will take time, though. Rep. Kaiali’i Kahele (D-Hawaii) noted that some residents were initially told they would be able to move back into their homes by Christmas, only for that timeline to be pushed back. Vice Adm. Yancy B. Lindsey, head of Navy Installations Command, told Kahele the service now anticipates some families could be waiting for weeks to come.

“We want to make sure that the homes have drinkable water, and so we’re working diligently with our partners at the Hawaii Department of Health and the EPA and our fellow services to, once we attain that drinkable water and it is safe to use, that those families that have chosen to displace will be able to return to their homes,” Lindsey said. “We expect that to begin occurring here in late January and proceed through the middle of February.”

Lindsey also told lawmakers that the number of households affected by the spill is currently estimated at “9,000-plus.”

In response to a query from Air Force Magazine, a Navy spokeswoman said there are approximately 8,086 families on the Navy’s water supply system. As of Jan. 10, 3,965 of those families, just shy of half, are in temporary housing. Of those 8,086 or so families, 1,968 are Air Force families, with 469 in temporary housing.

No families were required to leave their homes, the spokeswoman added, and can move back in whenever they wish, but the Hawaii DOH health advisory is still active.

Yet even as the Navy works to address the fallout from the spill, long-term implications loom. Converse said he has seen early estimates that operational readiness in the short term will be minimally affected by the halting of operations at Red Hill, defining the short term as January and February.

“Beyond that, we do start incurring costs at the Defense Logistics Agency associated with the inability to use that facility to manage the global distribution of fuel in conjunction with all the other fuel points,” Converse said. “I don’t have details at my fingertips on what those costs are and what are the risks to National Security associated with the continued non-operation on the Red Hill fuel facility beyond January and February.”

The Defense Logistics Agency is currently assessing that impact, Converse said, and will brief U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. John Aquilino.

At the same time, the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision from Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) directing the Pentagon to conduct an assessment of alternatives to Red Hill, as local advocates and politicians push for the facility to be permanently shut down.

Converse declined to say what other locations are being considered as part of that study but did say that “INDOPACOM, whose combatant commander is responsible for this area of operation, has directed the Defense Logistics Agency, who owns fuel distribution across the globe, to evaluate alternatives for dispersing this fuel and alternative sites for storing or alternative methods for storage, whether it be in a fixed site or within tankers that are globally distributed.”

Appeal Denied

The question of dispersing and storing fuel could be of critical importance in the coming months. The Navy initially tried to contest the state order directing it to drain the Red Hill fuel tanks, pointing to the implications for national security. Its appeal was denied, however, and Converse said Jan. 11 that the service would comply with the order.

Under the order, the Navy has until Feb. 2 to submit a plan and implementation schedule for defueling. Once that plan is approved by the Department of Health, defueling must be completed within 30 days.

Such a timeline is “aggressive” and “ambitious,” Converse and Case acknowledged. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), on the other hand, seemed dubious that it was even possible.

“To me, it looks like it would be at least six months before you get to the point where you could have these recommendations, another six months before you might start emptying the fuel tanks, [and] then the amount of time it takes for that 250 or so million gallons of fuel, that we could be looking at a year, much more than a year even potentially, that the operations of Red Hill are impacted,” Luria said.

Case pushed back on Luria’s concerns, saying he was confident that the Navy would do its best to meet the deadlines.

Ultimately, the long-term fate of Red Hill remains unclear. Local activists have pointed to previous instances of spills at the facility as proof that it is not safe. And, indeed, Converse confirmed Jan. 11 that the Navy is investigating whether there is any connection between this most recent spill and one that occurred in May 2021, which was ultimately attributed to operator error.

“This is a strategic fuel facility for the entire military, not just the Navy. So we need to understand and not treat these as individual isolated incidents and take minor corrective actions, but treat these as potential systemic issues, get to the root causes, and fix those problems,” Converse said.

To that end, Case told the panel of Navy officials testifying that their study of the issue shouldn’t end by chalking it up to the mistakes of individual operators.

“I have said this to the Secretary of the Navy. I’ve said this to other folks during the course of this discussion: There may well have been errors by operators out at Red Hill, but to confine the explanation simply to operator error is to ignore what is clearly issues with respect to the operation and maintenance and perhaps even the direct design of Red Hill,” Case said.

Fates of 12 DOD Advisory Boards Have Yet to Be Announced

Jan. 11, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

As the anniversary approaches of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s unprecedented purge of civilian advisory boards, up to a dozen boards are still in limbo.

A few of the boards whose fates haven’t been announced include the Defense Innovation Board, the Department of Defense Military Family Readiness Council, and the National Reconnaissance Advisory Board.

Austin announced in a memo Jan. 30, 2021, just eight days after his confirmation as Secretary, that he was concluding the volunteer terms of what the department will only describe as “several hundred” civilian subject-matter experts.

Pentagon officials have said Austin took into account political reasons—“the scale” and “frenetic” quality of certain last-minute nominations by the Trump administration—in deciding to launch a so-called “zero-based review” of all the boards. Austin also wanted to “get his arms around” the boards’ usefulness.

Unnamed officials told reporters Feb. 2, 2021, that the plan was for staff to make recommendations to Austin by June 1, 2021, on whether to continue, change, or end each board. The staff were to have made a recommendation on the Defense Innovation Board, for example, by March 12, 2021—the earliest deadline among the boards Austin still hasn’t publicly ruled on.

Austin had cleared 27 boards to restart as of Dec. 6. That was the last time Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby announced a newly approved batch of boards. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough said then that no boards had yet been “dissolved.”

In a tradition that dates to the beginning of the federal government, the boards provide expertise from the civilian world. By holding public meetings, they also provide a forum for public input, according to the General Services Administration, which monitors advisory committees such as the DOD boards and others across the federal government. The boards don’t have any decision-making powers.

Austin ended the terms of every member occupying a seat that the Defense Secretary has the power to appoint. The unnamed officials promised reporters they would follow up with a precise number of people affected. However, Gough since confirmed that the department didn’t track the precise number of volunteer subject-matter experts whose terms Austin concluded and would only estimate “several hundred.”

The Office of the Secretary of Defense didn’t immediately confirm that no other boards had restarted since Kirby’s last announcement.

Boards approved to restart include:

Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery
Advisory Panel on Community Support for Military Families with Special Needs
Air University Board of Visitors
Board on Coastal Engineering Research
Board of Advisors for the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (not listed in Austin’s original memo)
*Board of Visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy
Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (not currently populated)
Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces
Defense Advisory Committee on Military Personnel Testing
Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services
Defense Business Board
Defense Health Board
Defense Policy Board
Defense Science Board
*Department of Defense Board of Actuaries
*Department of Defense Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care Board of Actuaries
Department of Defense Wage Committee
Inland Waterways Users Board
Marine Corps University Board of Visitors
National Defense University Board of Visitors
*Reserve Forces Policy Board
Uniform Formulary Beneficiary Advisory Panel
U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board
U.S. Army Science Board
*U.S. Military Academy Board of Visitors
*U.S. Naval Academy Board of Visitors
U.S. Strategic Command Advisory Group

Boards that Austin has not yet approved to restart (and the 2021 deadline for a staff recommendation) include:

Armed Forces Retirement Home Advisory Council (April 30)
Army Education Advisory Committee (March 26)
*Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation Board of Visitors (March 26)
*Department of Defense Military Family Readiness Council (April 30)
Defense Advisory Committee for the Prevention of Sexual Misconduct (April 30, wasn’t populated at start of review)
Defense Innovation Board (March 12)
Education for Seapower Advisory Board (April 30)
National Reconnaissance Advisory Board (April 30)
National Security Agency Emerging Technologies Board (April 30)
*National Security Education Board (April 30)
*Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Scientific Advisory Board (April 30)
*Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Board of Regents (April 30)

Boards originally listed in Austin’s memo that aren’t subject to the review (and why):

Advisory Committee on Industrial Security and Industrial Base Policy (wasn’t reconstituted because it would already have ended in 2022)
National Intelligence University Board of Visitors (realigned under the Officer of the Director of National Intelligence)
Ocean Research Advisory Panel (no current members appointed by the Secretary of Defense)
Table Rock Lake Oversight Committee (mission concluded)

*Some or all members of the boards preceded by an asterisk remained in their positions because the Secretary of Defense does not have the authority to appoint or remove those members.