US Repels Attacks in Iraq, Syria on Anniversary of Soleimani’s Death

Jan. 4, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The danger faced by American troops training Iraqis and those fighting the Islamic State group in neighboring Syria remain high with U.S. Central Command repelling a drone strike Jan. 3 and destroying a rocket site Jan. 4.

Two armed drones flew near an Iraqi military base hosting U.S. forces near Baghdad International Airport Jan. 3 when they were detected and shot down, according to press reports. The attempted attack came on the second anniversary of the assassination by a U.S. drone strike of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Some 2,500 American service members remain in Iraq on an “advise, assist, and enable” mission since the combat mission in Iraq ended Dec. 9, 2021. The attempted drone attack is still under investigation.

At approximately 3:40 p.m. local time Jan. 4, Coalition forces near a military base used by American troops in Deir ez-Zour, Syria, known as Green Village, observed several launch sites of indirect fire rockets that posed “an imminent threat,” according to a Coalition official.

“Acting in self-defense, coalition forces conducted strikes to eliminate the threat,” the official said in a statement provided by CENTCOM to Air Force Magazine. “Indirect fire attacks pose a serious threat to innocent civilians because of their lack of discrimination.”

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby told journalists at a Jan. 4 briefing that U.S. forces in the region are in continuous danger.

“Clearly, our men and women remain in harm’s way, and we have to take that threat very seriously,” he said. “One of the reasons why these sites were hit was we had reason to believe that they were going to be used as launch sites for attacks on Green Village.”

Kirby said the responsible group had not yet been identified, but the available evidence suggested the same Iranian-backed militias that have frequently fired rockets at U.S. forces.

“We continue to see threats against our forces in Iraq and Syria by militia groups that are backed by Iran,” he said.

“We’ve seen in just the last few days that there have been acts perpetrated by some of these groups that validate the consistent concern that we’ve had over the safety and security of our people,” Kirby added.

Iran-backed militias have killed and injured Americans in the region and prompted former President Donald J. Trump to strike Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020.

“These kinds of attacks are very much in keeping with the kinds of attacks we’ve seen from Iran-backed militias in Iraq and in Syria,” Kirby said. “So obviously, our working level assumption is that such groups were responsible for these.”

South Korean F-35 Conducts Emergency ‘Belly Landing’

Jan. 4, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A South Korean air force F-35 pilot was forced to make an emergency “belly landing” but managed to escape unharmed Jan. 4, according to multiple media reports.

The incident was caused by “avionic system issues,” South Korean air force officials told news agency Yonhap, which caused the landing gear to malfunction and resulted in the pilot landing on a runway with the gear up.

Before the landing, a fire engine deployed a special foam on the runway, “which prevented the jet’s fuselage from sustaining any serious damage,” officials added. The full extent of the damage has not been reported.

The emergency landing occurred around 1 p.m. local time at a South Korean base in Seosan, some 70 kilometersfrom Osan Air Base. According to media reports, it is the first known instance of a belly landing by an F-35 since the U.S. began selling the fifth-generation fighter to partner nations.

South Korean officials have reportedly said they are suspending flights for all its air force’s 30-plus F-35 fighters while it investigates the emergency landing.

There have been other incidents involving allies and partners in the F-35 program—members of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force have had to make at least seven emergency landings in F-35s, news agency Nikkei reported. There was also a nighttime crash into the ocean in April 2019 that killed a Japanese pilot.

More recently, a British F-35B crashed just after takeoff from an aircraft carrier in November 2021, falling into the Mediterranean Sea.

U.S. Air Force pilots have also dealt with problems. In May 2020, a pilot at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, crashed while landing due to excessive speed, as well as issues with faulty flight control logic, the helmet-mounted display, the jet’s oxygen system, and ineffective simulator training. A month later, an F-35A’s landing gear collapsed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

In addition to South Korea and Japan, U.S. ally Australia also operates F-35As in the Indo-Pacific, and Singapore is slated to receive F-35Bs starting in 2026.

Biden Promises ‘Heavy Price’ of a Ukraine Invasion in Call with Putin

Jan. 3, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

President Joe Biden kicked off the new year with a promise of three high-level talks between the United States and Russia to address tensions along the border with Ukraine and Russia’s concerns about NATO.

The first high-level talks between Russian and American officials will take place Jan. 9-10 in Geneva.

Following the Strategic Stability Dialogue, a NATO-Russia Council meeting will take place Jan. 12 and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitors adherence to the Minsk accords, is planned for Jan. 13.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has maintained a forceful troop presence of some 100,000 virtually surrounding Ukraine, with sophisticated air force and anti-access/area denial (A2AD) capabilities that experts believe would allow for a swift invasion. Biden has warned of heavy sanctions and reinforcements to NATO’s eastern flank if Russia invaded, but the President has not increased deterrence measures despite private calls from allies. Biden has also repeated his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, but not provided additional defense assistance to that country following a December visit to Ukraine by a U.S. air defense team.

“I made it clear to President Putin that if he makes any more moves and goes into Ukraine, we will have severe sanctions,” Biden said at a press gaggle Dec. 31 in Wilmington following a call the day before with Putin.

“We will increase our presence in Europe with our NATO Allies, and it will have to be a heavy price to pay for it,” Biden underscored. “[Putin] laid out some of his concerns about NATO and the United States and Europe, and we laid out ours. And we said we’d begin to negotiate some of those issues.”

Biden also said that he told Putin none of that would happen unless Russia de-escalated. He did not specifically address a question from reporters as to whether he thought Putin would invade Ukraine, instead pointing to Russia’s agreement to take part in the series of talks.

“I always expect if you negotiate you make progress, but we’ll see. We’ll see,” Biden said.

On a background call with journalists the day before, a senior administration official described the conversation between Biden and Putin as “serious and substantive.”

In past public statements, Putin has called for a guarantee that Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO, something the U.S. has refused to accept. The Russian leader also discourages countries from providing defense assistance to Ukraine and considers any movement of troops or equipment near Russian borders a threat to Russia’s national security.

“President Biden laid out two paths, two aspects of the U.S. approach that will really depend on Russia’s actions in the period ahead,” the official said.

In one path, Russia chooses diplomacy and de-escalation. That means reducing its troop presence along the borders of Ukraine and returning to the Normandy Format of multi-country talks to bring Russia back in accordance with the Minsk Accords that reduced conflict in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine. Russia invaded that region in 2014 when it seized Crimea, and Russian-backed separatists still control the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, with casualties on both sides each week.

In the second path, Russia chooses to further invade Ukraine.

“The other is a path that’s more focused on deterrence, including serious costs and consequences should Russia choose to proceed with a further invasion of Ukraine,” the official said. “Those costs include economic costs, include adjustments and augmentations of NATO force posture in Allied countries, and include additional assistance to Ukraine to enable it to further defend itself and its territory.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared satisfied with his own phone call with Biden in tweets posted Jan. 2.

“The first international talk of the year with @POTUS proves the special nature of our relations,” Zelensky wrote. “We appreciate the unwavering support of [the United States].”

Zelensky also said Biden had discussed with him continued reforms in Ukraine, and the breaking down of oligarch control of economic and political sectors.

Oklahoma ANG Prohibits Unvaccinated Airmen from Drilling

Jan. 3, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Unvaccinated Airmen from the Oklahoma Air National Guard who don’t have an approved or pending religious or administrative accommodation to the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are no longer allowed to drill, the state’s adjutant general, Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Mancino, announced.

The decision by Mancino, released Dec. 30, went into effect Jan. 1 and comes after weeks of conflict between the Defense Department and the Oklahoma National Guard over the vaccine mandate.

Mancino, who assumed control of the Oklahoma Guard in November, quickly issued a memo at the time stating that no member of the Oklahoma National Guard, including the state’s Air National Guard, would be required to take the vaccine, according to The Oklahoman.

Mancino defended the move by saying that while the Guard is on Title 32 status—under command and control of the state government but federally funded—they must follow orders from Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is not requiring the vaccine. That would change, Mancino indicated, if the Guardsmen were activated under Title 10 orders, which puts them under federal control.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby rejected that claim, though, in a Nov. 15 press briefing, saying that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had the authority to mandate the vaccine for the National Guard, even on Title 32 status, because “when they’re called up for their monthly training, they’re still federally funded.”

In a background briefing two days later, a senior Pentagon official seemed to reference section 323 of Title 32, which details how federal recognition can be withdrawn from a Guard member who fails to meet the “qualifications prescribed by the Secretary,” as DOD’s legal justification for pushing the vaccine mandate.

A subsequent memo from Austin indicated that the Pentagon would not pay Guardsmen who refuse the vaccine.

On Dec. 2, the Office of the Oklahoma Attorney General filed a federal lawsuit seeking an injunction against the vaccine mandate. The lawsuit also sought to stop the Pentagon from denying funds to the Oklahoma National Guard. As part of that filing, the state said that roughly 89 percent of its Air National Guard unit had been vaccinated.

On Dec. 28, however, a federal judge denied the request for a temporary injunction, saying “the court is required to decide the case on the basis of federal law, not common sense. But, either way, the result would be the same.”

In a message to the Oklahoma ANG, Mancino noted that in light of that denial, “it is our duty to follow a ruling once made.” As a result, Airmen who aren’t vaccinated, don’t have an approved or pending accommodation request, or haven’t said they wish to be vaccinated won’t be able to participate in monthly drills. These rules will only apply to Airmen, as the Army National Guard’s deadline for vaccination isn’t until June.

Oklahoma isn’t the only state seeking to challenge the DOD’s vaccine rule—Governors from Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Wyoming penned a joint letter released Dec. 14 echoing Oklahoma’s argument that while Guardsmen are on Title 32 status, they are under the command and control of the state government.

That letter, however, only asked Austin to withdraw his order that Guardsmen not be paid if they are not fully vaccinated. Oklahoma is thus far the only state to challenge the order in court.

An Oklahoma National Guard spokeswoman told Air Force Magazine on Jan. 3 that according to the most recent data from last week, roughly 97 percent of the 2,200 or so Airmen in the Oklahoma ANG are either vaccinated or have a pending/approved accommodation request, putting the number of Airmen affected by the new order around 60.

Across the broader Department of the Air Force, 91.5 percent of the Air National Guard is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 according to Dec. 22 data, with another 0.8 percent partially vaccinated. Roughly 0.3 percent are seeking religious accomodations, and another 0.2 have received administrative or medical exemptions. Just 0.12 percent of Airmen in the Guard have verbally refused the vaccine.

At the same time, DAF is taking steps to encourage Airmen and Guardians to get the COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, as case counts reach record highs. On Dec. 30, the department announced it was authorizing a four-hour pass for service members to get the booster, which is not required. Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones said department leaders “strongly encourage all Airmen, Guardians, and DAF federal employees to receive a booster.”

Secretary Austin in Quarantine with COVID as DOD Braces for Infection Spike

Jan. 3, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III tested positive for COVID-19 Jan. 2 and is experiencing mild symptoms, he said in a statement, noting he last met with President Joe Biden Dec. 21 and his own staff on Dec. 30. Both meetings took place prior to exhibiting symptoms. The Secretary will conduct virtual meetings as necessary and quarantine at his home for five days.

“My symptoms are mild, and I am following my physician’s directions,” Austin said, noting he had requested the test after exhibiting symptoms.

“Stemming the spread of this virus, safeguarding our workforce, and ensuring my own speedy and safe recovery remain my priorities,” Austin added.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby told Air Force Magazine in a written response that Austin was on leave, at home with his family, when he began to experience symptoms on Saturday, Jan. 1.

“He immediately called his physician, who promptly scheduled a test Sunday morning. His immediate family, his security detail, and a small number of immediate staff members have been exposed to him in the last week. They are undergoing testing and will take appropriate steps if positive,” Kirby said.

The spokesman declined to specify the variant of coronavirus that was detected.

Austin referenced a trip to Southeast Asia in early 2022 to drum up regional support deterring China during remarks Dec. 4 at the Reagan National Defense Forum, but the trip was postponed prior to his developing symptoms. Details of the countries Austin planned to visit in the region were never formally announced.

The Secretary will retain all authorities and has designated Deputy Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks to represent him in other matters.

Austin’s own COVID-19 infection comes amid heightened measures across the defense apparatus to contain the rapid spread of the highly-contagious omicron variant, which infects even those who have been vaccinated and received a booster. Austin received his COVID booster shot on Oct. 8.

On Dec. 30, DOD released two updated memorandums to help the force stop the spread of coronavirus. The first memo included previous practices such as masking, physical distancing, teleworking, testing, and vaccination. The memo warned commanders to prepare to rapidly increase health protection condition (HPCON) levels if omicron cases continue to rise.

The second memo, the 15th supplement of the Force Health Protection Guidance, described updated laboratory testing guidance, including asymptomatic testing.

During his Jan. 19, 2021 nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Austin promised to use DOD to help distribute vaccines across the country and to vaccinate troops in order to preserve readiness.

In the months since an August DOD vaccine mandate went into effect, each of the services were directed to set their own deadlines. Active-duty service members who refuse to vaccinate have been removed from the service. Deadlines for members of the Reserve and National Guard to vaccinate is June 30, 2022.

On Dec. 29, DOD awarded $136.7 million for a company to improve production capacity for point-of-care tests.

The award, made in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, will allow MilliporeSigma of Sheboygan, Wisc., to produce enough nitrocellulose membrane to support more than 83.3 million tests.

The American Rescue Plan Act funded the effort, which was coordinated with the DOD Defense Assisted Acquisition Cell and the Air Force’s Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force.

Nearly 1.6 million service members are fully vaccinated and some 332,000 service members are partially vaccinated. As of Dec. 22, the last day statistics were updated, 2,320 service members were hospitalized for COVID-19. Updated hospitalization statistics are expected the week of Jan. 3.

Fighting Comes Into Focus for the Space Force in 2022

Jan. 2, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The leaders of the Space Force foresee the service continuing to become more “lethal” in 2022, inventing new tactical scenarios in its third year while maturing its organizational charts and carving out roles for outside entities.

“I hope I am able to say that in Year 3, you’ll see us really putting our tires on the track and just really moving out and delivering the things that we’ve been thinking about and working on and designing,” said Space Force Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno.

Space Force’s director of staff at its Pentagon headquarters, Armagno summed up the service’s first two years and looked ahead to 2022 in a Potomac Officers Club webinar.

Maturing Organizations

Having now stood up all three of its field commands—two in 2021—the Space Force still needs to finalize where to base the headquarters of one. That process for Space Training and Readiness Command, temporarily at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., may be forthcoming.

Likewise, at the combatant command level, U.S. Space Command waits to find out whether it will move to Redstone Arsenal, Ala., as announced.

Meanwhile, the Space Force will double the size of its Pentagon headquarters staff, expecting to add 300 people in 2022, said Armagno.

People and satellites from the Space Force’s sister services will transfer to the new service in 2022. This second batch of transfers will turn 670 Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers into Guardians. They, and 259 civilians also transferring, will have a new orientation class to help bridge cultures. The Space Force also plans to add another 521 enlisted Guardians and about 70 officers through recruitment in 2022.

The Space Development Agency moves over in 2022 as well, from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the Space Force. It will take along its plan for a multilayered, multifunctional constellation of relatively low-cost satellites made of readily available parts.

“I call it ‘cracking commercial’—hacking commercial,” Armagno said, referring to SDA’s role. That means figuring out how companies in the private sector “move so quickly— to capitalize on some of their innovation and inventiveness and bring it into the hands of operational warfighters sooner.”

Bringing Outside Entities Into the Fold

Partnerships now formalized with 11 universities will get off the ground in 2022. Selected in part for having Air Force ROTC detachments, the 11 also feature aerospace research programs.

On a visit to the University of Colorado Boulder to shake on the plan, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson described the Space Force’s training and education needs. He said they’re “very, very focused and very, very high tech.”

To “operate successfully in an incredibly complex physical and technical domain,” Thompson said Space Force leaders realized the service needed to adapt.

Armagno, who attended the partnership signing at Georgia Tech, said the program is meant to benefit the Space Force on multiple levels: “world-class research, advanced education, and leadership development.”

In terms of working with companies in the private sector, Armagno said a business fair by the new Space Warfighting Analysis Center was “a recipe for success, and we’re going to repeat it.” The new center brought in companies for briefings “so that industries understood exactly what we need and why we need it.”

As evidence of growing collaboration with other countries’ militaries, Armagno offered the example of Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond’s “chiefs’ summit.” The summit hosted chiefs from 12 partners nations in 2020 and will grow to 22 in 2022.

Space Force’s “partnering arrangements” have delivered cost savings plus “opportunities to grow our relationships with the international community,” Armagno said. “For example, Norway is hosting a Space Force payload on one of its satellite launches, and it’s providing Arctic communications two years sooner than we could do it.”

Fighting Comes Into Focus

Only a few years ago, talking about “fighting in space” wasn’t only taboo: “I can remember when ‘space superiority,’ ‘offensive and defensive operations in space,’ ‘warfighting in space’—you couldn’t even use these words. It was against policy to talk about these things,” said retired Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, a former astronaut and commander of Air Force Space Command and U.S. Strategic Command.

Now serving as the Mitchell Institute’s Explorer Chair for Space Warfighting Studies, Chilton talked about the military’s changing mindset with Space Force Lt. Gen. Chance B. Saltzman in a webinar rounding up some of the service’s accomplishments.

Saltzman suggested that provocative activities such as Russia’s debris-generating anti-satellite test in November are “a natural consequence of military behaviors.”

“When you are behind, you look for ways to seek vulnerabilities of your adversary and your competitor so that you can regain the strategic advantage, and we’re seeing that play out,” Saltzman said.

To be ready in the event that “a very bad day happens in space and the country need to recover,” Armagno said the Space Force practiced a “groundbreaking event” in June 2021—the service’s first “tactical responsive launch mission.” Space Systems Command, another of the three field commands, compressed what Armagno described as “the normal multi-month preparation timeline” for a launch “to just under three weeks.”

The exercise “demonstrated a possible rapid reconstitution capability for the nation,” Armagno said.

Armagno predicted that the service will publicly unveil a new force design for missile warning and missile tracking in 2022, “and we’ll continue to evaluate force designs for other missions.”

To help the Space Force prevent “bad actors” from causing more havoc in space, Armagno said globally accepted norms of behavior are the first step.

“From a military perspective, what’s important about norms of behavior is that we’re going to be able to tell who’s not following them,” Armagno said.

SOUTHCOM Plans a Space Component to Help Fight Crime, Grow Ties in the Americas

Dec. 28, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND, Miami, Fla.—U.S. Southern Command is planning to expand its military space engagement in the Americas to help partner nations in ways China and Russia don’t, in part by combating crime from drug trafficking to deforestation and illegal fishing.

“We are going to stand up a more robust space team that will allow us to then work with Space Command and the Space Force to bring more capability to our partner nations,” Lt. Gen. Andrew Croft, military deputy commander of U.S. Southern Command, said in an interview.

“We’re going to have a southern space component for SOUTHCOM here in about a year,” he said. “The Russians and the Chinese are competing with us in that realm. So, they have space observatories also in our AOR [area of responsibility].”

The former commander of SOUTHCOM’s Air Forces Southern at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., said sharing space domain awareness information with partner nations is currently conducted under the component command position he occupied from 2018 to 2020.

Now, he envisions expanding personnel to a small team at the Miami combatant command headquarters, mirroring the way cyber capabilities and partner engagement have grown in recent years. SOUTHCOM would grow the team of planners and trainers to “less than 10” at first.

“I think it’ll grow slowly over time as we do more space operations here in the AOR,” Croft said.

Few countries in the Western Hemisphere have space capabilities, but many benefit from the sharing of open-source satellite data. SOUTHCOM mainly works with Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and Peru on space. Some of the leaders attended a meeting of Space Chiefs with Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond in Colorado Springs in August.

During a visit to the command in March 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a research, development, testing, and evaluation agreement that included space cooperation. By August 2020, Space Force conducted its first senior space flag officer event with Brazil, the virtual U.S.-Brazil Space Engagement Talks.

“Brazil is the furthest along because they have a launch site,” Croft said of the Alcantara Space Center operated by the Brazilian Air Force. “They are trying to utilize it more often, and so that’s why we signed the technology safeguard agreement with them.”

In some areas of space competition in the hemisphere, China is already one step ahead, planting telescopes and tracking stations in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

“They’re doing so because you have to track the things globally,” said Croft.

But the United States is sharing space data that helps partner nations protect their vital resources and fight organized crime.

“From space, we can track illegal logging, illegal mining, illegal fishing. And it’s only going to get better as these commercial operations such as SpaceX launch constellations of low Earth orbit satellites, that have various ways of detecting things,” Croft said.

SOUTHCOM already shares open-source space data with partner nations to track and target illegal activity that is enriching transnational criminal organizations.

“As an example, in Peru, we were looking at space imagery of these illegal mines that are in the Amazon, and they’re terrible—they totally destroy the rainforest,” Croft said.

Off the coast of Ecuador, illegal fishing affects the economy and livelihood of citizens, forcing them to turn to activities that help drug runners to operate on the high seas.

“Illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing is a huge, huge deal,” Croft said. “Near the Galapagos Islands, the Chinese have 300-ish big fishing ships out there that have these massive nets. They know the exact migratory routes of the fish, and they will take the entire fish stock.”

Add to that fact that the Eastern Pacific is a popular drug trafficking route as fast boats and semi-submersibles departing from northern Ecuador move toward the shores of Central America and Mexico to get cargo northward.

“Ecuador is totally who’s really concerned about that because it takes all the money away from their fishermen,” Croft explained. “So, then, what do they do? They sell fuel and supplies to the drug runners. They become little 7-11s because they have no other source of income.”

Space partnerships can stop that, he said.

“As we have access to more space vehicles, lower-end stuff that’s not classified, I think that’s where you’re going to see a huge advantage,” he said. “In five or 10 years, we’ll be able to see every ship on the ocean, especially the illegal fishing ships. … In many cases [that’s] not classified data, so that our partner nations, we can share it with them.”

Compared to U.S. adversaries Russia and China operating in the hemisphere, sharing space data and enhancing space cooperation gives the U.S. an edge, Croft explained:

“All those [are] things we care about that the Chinese and the Russians will not. They’re going to do things that just purely benefit them.”

From COVID-19 to a New Deployment Model, What Air and Space Force Personnel Have to Watch in 2022

Dec. 27, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

A new year is poised to bring some key changes for Air Force and Space Force personnel as the services look to continue to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, transition to a new force generation model, roll out changes to their physical fitness programs, promote diversity, and more in 2022.

COVID-19

The past 12 months have seen huge developments in the COVID-19 pandemic that has loomed over the Air Force, the Pentagon, and the entire world for nearly two years.

Starting in the spring of 2021, vaccines became widely available, with troops helping to run mass vaccination sites across the nation. By late August, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had announced that all service members would be required to get the vaccine.

The Air Force and Space Force were the first services to require Active-duty troops to be fully vaccinated, setting a deadline of Nov. 2, and the vast majority of the force—nearly 96 percent—complied.

Still, thousands of Airmen and Guardians did not get the shot. Some received medical or administrative exemptions, some applied for religious accommodations, and some simply refused.

Many of those unvaccinated enter 2022 with their future in the Air Force or Space Force uncertain. Thousands of Active-duty, Guard, and Reserve Airmen and Guardians are still seeking religious exemptions, but the Air Force had yet to grant a single one as of Dec. 22, with major commands and field commands denying more than 2,000 requests before Christmas.

The Air Force has also said those who are unvaccinated and don’t have an exemption will not be allowed to PCS to a new assignment, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has raised the possibility that the unvaccinated will not be able to deploy.

The question now becomes just how many Airmen and Guardians the department will lose, either through separation, retirement, or discharge. If thousands wind up choosing either to leave or get booted, that could create a ripple effect on recruiting, retention, and, in the most extreme scenarios, readiness, depending on if separations are concentrated in certain units.

Even as the issue of the unvaccinated is expected to linger, another decision is coming up for the Pentagon—whether to require booster shots for troops. The FDA has granted emergency use authorization to booster shots from Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Johnson and Johnson, and health officials are urging the public to get the booster to combat a growing surge caused by the omicron variant.

DOD Press Secretary John F. Kirby has said the booster question is being considered at the highest levels of the Pentagon. Should leaders decide to require the booster, the process of deadlines, compliance, and discipline could play out again.

Another unknown is how the pandemic will continue to affect the housing market, which has created headaches for many service members trying to PCS over the past year or so. Spiking housing costs led the DAF to approve a temporary increase in basic allowance for housing rates, but that increase expired Dec. 31, 2021. The 2022 BAH rates represent a 5.1 percent increase on average, the largest jump in a decade, according to MilitaryBenefits.info.

Regardless of what happens with the pandemic, the nature of certain Air Force work environments has permanently changed—the commander of Air Force Materiel Command, Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr., acknowledged as much when he told reporters that AFMC would not return to a pre-COVID office model, instead wanting 50 percent of its workforce teleworking either permanently or on certain days.

For many Airmen, of course, teleworking isn’t feasible. But other office environments might look to follow AFMC’s lead.

Air Force deployment model — U.S. Air Force Airmen assigned to the 366th Fighter Wing, deployed from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, load onto a C-130J Super Hercules assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron, deployed from Yokota Air Base, Japan, during the Pacific Iron 2021 exercise at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, July 27, 2021. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Hannah Bean.

NEW DEPLOYMENT MODEL

In an interview in August 2021, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. outlined a new force generation model for the service, based around a 24-month cycle divided into four six-month phases.

The four phases—Available to Commit, Reset, Prepare, and Ready—are aimed at standardizing the process for deployments across the Air Force, Brown said. Under previous force generation models, the service was often stretched thin with high demand and little downtime or readiness, especially after two decades of war in the Middle East.

The move to a new deployment model coincides with the Air Force’s increasing emphasis on agile combat employment, the concept of multi-capable Airmen deploying and operating in disparate locations as needed. To support ACE, Brown said, units need to have a standardized deployment process to be as interoperable as possible.

The goal for the new force generation model is to reach initial operational capability in fiscal 2023, which begins in October 2022. But the shift has already begun and will continue through 2022 as major commands such as Air Combat Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, Air Mobility Command, and Air Force Global Strike Command transition squadrons to the new cycle.

Of course, the new model will look different for the Space Force, as the fledgling service deploys Guardians in place, for missions that are nonstop. Exact details on what the Space Force will do, however, remain to be seen.

SPACE FORCE

The Space Force celebrated its second birthday to close out 2021, marking the end of a momentous 12 months as the service stood up two field commands—Space Systems Command and Space Training and Readiness Command—released its first ever human capital plan, and unveiled the insignia for its enlisted ranks. Oh, and it also debuted prototypes of its new service dress uniform.

As the Space Force enters its third year of existence, more changes for personnel are still to come. The service has said new physical fitness guidelines will be unveiled by early 2022, and leaders have hinted that those could look very different from the models used by the Air Force and other branches, focusing more on “holistic” health rather than testing.

USSF is also poised to become bigger and take on more missions in 2022, as Army and Navy assets are supposed to transfer over. That is complicated, however, by the current use of a continuing resolution to fund the government, keeping funding levels frozen at fiscal 2021 levels and preventing transfers and new starts.

ASC 2021 John Raymond Space Force — Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond speaks about space operations and the Space Force at the Air Force Association’s 2021 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 21, 2021. Staff photo by Mike Tsukamoto.

The latest CR funds the government through Feb. 18. Before then, members of Congress will have to negotiate an appropriations bill to accompany the 2022 NDAA they passed in mid-December.

Assets aren’t the only thing being transferred. The Space Force selected 670 Active-duty service members and 259 civilians to join the new service in fiscal year 2022 and 2023 from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. USSF is also slated to add 521 enlisted Guardians and about 70 officers through recruitment.

NEW PT MODEL

While Guardians are still waiting for the Space Force to unveil its new PT guidelines, they will continue to follow the Air Force’s standards, and those are set to change in the new year.

The Air Force introduced a revamped physical fitness test that went into effect Jan. 1, 2022, with alternate exercises to the classic 1.5-mile run, pushups, and situps. Now, Airmen can choose between:

A 1.5-mile run or a 20-meter high-aerobic multi-shuttle run (HAMR).
One minute of pushups or two minutes of hand-release pushups.
One minute of situps, two minutes of cross-leg reverse crunches, or a forearm plank held for as long as possible.

One option that’s not on the table is a 1-mile walk that was previously previewed by Air Force leadership. In a Facebook post, Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass wrote that the walk was removed “until we are able to standardize the VO2 measurement equipment across every installation.”

The scoring charts for the new PT test, broken down by gender and five-year cohorts, are available here.

air force pt test — Airmen from the 8th Fighter Wing participate in the Air Force’s physical fitness assessment beta test of the 20-meter high-aerobic multi-shuttle run at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, Aug. 26, 2021. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. James Cason.

EQUITY EFFORTS

In 2021, the Air Force released reviews and reports showing that female Airmen and Airmen from racial and ethnic minorities often faced disparities in discipline, promotions, and opportunities in the military, as well as instances of interpersonal violence.

Air Force Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones has taken particular interest in this issue, pushing for the service to conduct further analysis of the disparities facing women of color in the Air Force. She and Kendall have framed the issue as a readiness problem—lower-level Airmen don’t always trust their leaders, which prevents them from serving to their full potential.

Kendall has also tied these reports to the ongoing issue of suicide, saying Airmen need to be able to go to their commanders if they are struggling and seek help.

A 2021 Pentagon report found that the total number of suicides across the services increased in 2021, but that the rate of suicides per 100,000 individuals did not increase by a statistically significant margin from 2019 to 2020, assuaging some fears that the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to a surge. Suspected suicides did decline through the first part of 2021.

Into 2022, the Air Force will continue to study the root causes of the disparities reported in the data and look for ways to address them. The service will also see an overhaul of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as the 2022 NDAA removes the decision to prosecute certain crimes such as rape, sexual assault, murder, and kidnapping from the chain of command. The bill also changes the UCMJ to include sexual harassment as a punishable offense.

PROMOTIONS

Several major changes are coming for the Weighted Airman Promotion System in 2022. First, potential NCOs taking the Promotion Fitness Examination will no longer face 100 knowledge-based questions. Instead, they’ll have to answer 60 knowledge questions and 20 “situational judgment test” questions.

For the situational judgment questions, test-takers will “read the description of a situation relevant to their potential rank and duties, examine four possible responses to the situation, and then select the most effective and the least effective response,” according to an Air Force press release.

The Air Force is also changing how it evaluates Enlisted Promotion Reports. While up to three years of EPRs will still be considered, the service will no longer weight point totals based on the number of EPRs evaluated, a practice that leaders said sometimes unfairly disadvantaged more experienced Airmen.

Now, for their most recent EPR, Airmen will receive 250 points for a “Promote Now” recommendation, 220 points for “Must Promote,” and 200 points for “Promote.” And for Airmen with only one eligible EPR, that will be the extent of their score.

But Airmen with a second EPR can receive anywhere from 10 to 20 points based off the promotion recommendation they received in that review, and Airmen with a third EPR can add an additional five to 15 points.

The new system also eliminates any point value for the “Not Ready Now” recommendation and does away with the “Do Not Promote” recommendation entirely.

Air force waps — Air Force Senior Airman Jewel Favreau, assigned to the 97th Security Forces Squadron, fills out a promotion testing form, May 20, 2020, at Altus Air Force Base, Okla. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Kenneth W. Norman.

Tweaks are also being made to the DAF’s promotion boards. The Air Force and Space Force will have separate schedules, with the USSF considering promotions from sergeant to master sergeant in May, followed by major through colonel in October, and senior master sergeant and chief master sergeant in November. The Space Force is also shifting to selection boards for all noncommissioned officers.

The Air Force, meanwhile, will have its promotion boards for chaplain, colonel, and some lieutenant colonels meet several months earlier than they did in 2021, “moving the colonels’ promotion boards earlier in the year to better align with the colonel assignment process,” said Col. Scott Arcuri, Air Force Selection Board Secretariat chief.

The Air Force is also establishing a new board to consider candidates for lieutenant colonel in the cross functional operations developmental category—the new category is for Foreign Area Officers who now have their own Air Force Specialty Code.

DRESS AND APPEARANCE CHANGES

The Air Force significantly changed its grooming standards in 2021, allowing women to wear longer ponytails and braids, loosening restrictions on how far their hair is allowed to extend side-to-side, permitting men to grow their hair to 2.5 inches in bulk, and making it easier for men to obtain shaving waivers by letting medical officials authorize waivers instead of only commanding officers.

The service also made a few seemingly simple but major changes to its dress and appearance standards, allowing Airmen to put their hands in their pockets while standing as well as to use their phones or take a drink while walking.

On the uniform front, the Air Force unveiled new PT gear, which will be available later in 2022, followed by a four-year transition period.

For service dress, the Space Force will continue to solicit feedback on its prototype uniform, with the potential for wear testing starting in 2022. The Air Force, meanwhile, might have an issue with its service dress, as the Defense Logistics Agency recently announced it is expecting limited availability of uniform items starting in the third quarter of fiscal 2022, around April. Looking to proactively address a potential uniform shortage, the Air Force has already started issuing fewer uniform items to some BMT graduates.

Private Military Landlord Pleads Guilty, Must Pay $65 Million for Defrauding Air Force, Other Services

Dec. 23, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Balfour Beatty Communities, one of the largest providers of privatized military housing in the U.S., has pleaded guilty to defrauding the Air Force, Army, and Navy, the Justice Department announced Dec. 23.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Balfour Beatty Communities has agreed to pay $65 million—$33.6 million in criminal fines and over $31.8 million in restitution—as a result of a federal investigation into its scheme to obtain performance bonuses by submitting false information to the military.

BBC will also be under probation and engage an independent compliance monitor for the next three years as part of the deal.

“The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is committed to protecting the integrity of the Department of the Air Force’s procurement process,” Special Agent Paul Wachsmuth, director of AFOSI’s Office of Procurement Fraud Investigations, said in a statement. “The extensive and dedicated collaborative efforts between AFOSI, the Air Force Audit Agency, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the Department of Justice in this investigation was paramount in ensuring the safety and well-being of our warfighters and their families.”

News of Balfour Beatty Communities’ issues were first reported in 2019. At the time, Air Force leaders noted “unacceptable” conditions at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., and the 20 other USAF installations where Balfour Beatty had communities. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the company’s homes did not meet fire safety codes and had mold, rodents, pests, radon gas, and other defects.

Soon after, a Reuters and CBS News investigation detailed how Balfour Beatty Communities maintained two sets of maintenance records at some bases—one detailing issues of mold, asbestos, and leaks that were not promptly fixed; and another set of falsified accounts of quick repairs that allowed the company to collect bonuses from the Pentagon.

On Dec. 23, the Justice Department confirmed that “BBC employees altered or manipulated data in property management software and destroyed and falsified resident comment cards to falsely inflate … metrics and, ultimately, to fraudulently induce the service branches to pay performance incentive fees which BBC had not earned.”

The media reports were followed by a Congressional hearing where lawmakers grilled a Balfour Beatty Communities official, who promised to refund the performance bonuses if the Air Force investigation substantiated the report of fraud.

Just over a month after that hearing, federal agents searched the office of BBC at Tinker. Shortly after that, then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the service secretaries signed the Military Housing Privatization Initiative Tenant Bill of Rights, aimed at protecting service members and families in private military housing.

A Balfour Beatty official testified to Congress in March 2021 the company undertook “a significant reorganization,” firing employees and improving its training after the scandal, and that it was on track to meet the requirements in that Tenant Bill of Rights.

Two former Balfour Beatty managers previously pleaded guilty to fraud for their roles in the scandal: Rick Cunefare, who directly supervised Balfour Beatty’s community managers overseeing day-to-day operations for the company’s housing at Lackland, Travis, Vandenberg, Tinker, and Fairchild Air Force Bases; and Stacy M. Cabrera, a community manager at Lackland.