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.

2,000 Airmen, Guardians are Denied COVID-19 Vaccine Religious Exemptions

Dec. 22, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force and Space Force commands have turned down more than 2,000 requests for religious accommodations to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate while approving none, the Department of the Air Force announced Dec. 22.

Airmen and Guardians whose religious accommodation requests are denied by their major command or field command can appeal the decision to the Surgeon General of the Air Force. But so far, no appeals have been successful—DAF has turned down 135, approving none.

Those whose appeals are denied may separate or retire, if able. After that, those who still refuse the vaccine “will be subject to the initiation of administrative discharge.”

While 2,130 requests have been denied, there are still 8,636 Airmen and Guardians across the Active-duty, Reserve and Guard who still have religious accommodation requests pending with their MAJCOM or FLDCOM, as well as 152 pending with the Surgeon General. But “based on the number of disapproved accommodation requests at this point,” service members are “encouraged to consider that operational requirements could result in requests for religious accommodations being denied,” the Air Force said in a statement.

According to Department of the Air Force Instruction 52-201, a Religious Resolution Team of commanders, chaplain corps personnel, medical providers, judge advocates, and other subject-matter experts work to evaluate religious accommodation requests before making a recommendation to the commander. As part of that process, a chaplain conducts an interview with the person seeking the exemption.

DAFI 52-201 contains a checklist for chaplains to consult as part of that interview, asking chaplains to evaluate whether the person’s beliefs “seemed honestly, consistently, and sincerely held” based on five factors:

Requestor is credible (consistently keeps tenets, practices, etc.).
Requestor’s demeanor and pattern of conduct are consistent with the request.
Requestor participates in activities associated with the belief(s).
Other persons supporting the claim are credible.
Request is supported by letter(s) of verification or endorsement from an organization espousing the beliefs, which are the basis for the claim.

The checklist also calls for the chaplain to discuss “alternate means of accommodating the practice” and to decide if the requestor “identified the substantial burden” of the Air Force rule that he or she feels infringes upon religious freedom.

However, the interview with the chaplain isn’t the only factor in determining whether to grant a request.

“Although the chaplain may advise the member’s belief is sincere, MAJCOM and FLDCOM commanders have to balance that member’s interests against the overall impact on operational readiness, health and safety of members and good order and discipline within the unit,” Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones said in a statement.

According to a memo signed by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, service members whose religious exemption requests are denied at the MAJCOM/FLDCOM 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 under honorable conditions.

The Air Force previously confirmed that it had discharged 27 service members for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, though none of those members had sought a religious or medical exemption.

On Dec. 21, DAF released its latest data showing that 95.7 percent of Airmen and Guardians are at least partially vaccinated. Another 2,000 or so individuals have medical exemptions, and roughly 2,200 have administrative exemptions. Yet that still leaves around 17,000 service members who are unvaccinated, either seeking an exemption, having verbally refused the vaccine, or are erroneously coded.

The Air Force has already stated that those who are unvaccinated without an approved exemption will not be allowed to PCS to a new assignment. And Kendall has raised the possibility that unvaccinated Airmen will not be able to deploy either.

As Uniform Shortage Looms, Some BMT Grads Go With Fewer Service Dress Items

Dec. 22, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Supply chain shortages are affecting availability of the Air Force’s service dress uniforms, leading the department to announce Dec. 21 that it has started temporarily issuing fewer uniform items to certain graduates of basic military training.

Typically, men and women are issued two long-sleeved and two short-sleeved blue shirts at BMT. Men also receive three pairs of trousers, and women get two pairs of slacks. Since November, though, amid a fabric shortage, some graduates have received only one long-sleeved shirt, one short-sleeved shirt, and one pair of either trousers or slacks, an Air Force spokesperson confirmed.

BMT graduates will be granted a cash allowance in their paychecks so that they can eventually buy a full uniform set from the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.

But it’s not just BMT graduates who could be affected in the coming months by the uniform shortage. The Department of the Air Force said in a statement that the current fabric shortage “will also affect the supply of service dress items” for the entire department.

The Defense Logistics Agency said in a statement that Burlington Industries, the sole U.S. supplier of approved worsted and poly-wool dress fabric used in all military services’ dress uniforms, is experiencing shortages caused by “labor challenges and increased material cost.”

As a result, the DLA is expecting “a greater impact on the production and availability of dress uniforms starting in the third quarter of fiscal year 2022”—around April 2022.

“DLA Troop Support’s Clothing and Textiles supply chain is in close communication with Burlington to match fabric production with stock levels to best maintain the flow of fabric and mitigate uniform backorders where possible,” the agency said in a statement.

The Clothing and Textiles supply chain agency is also “in the process of resoliciting Burlington’s contracts,” the statement said.

The Air Force isn’t the first service to experience uniform shortages of late. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coast Guard faced a shortage of operational dress uniforms resulting from outbreaks of the virus at manufacturing hubs in Puerto Rico. Supply shortages for both the USCG’s ‘Bravo’ jacket and dress pants lingered into mid-2021.

Massive supply chain issues have hit across the globe, spurred by a variety of factors including the pandemic and affecting everything from computer chips to Christmas lights.

As the calendar flips to 2022, though, uniform changes are already front of mind for some in the Department of the Air Force, as the Space Force looks to start wear-testing its new dress uniform, a prototype of which was unveiled in September.

Milley Speaks With Russian Counterpart as Blinken Calls for Dialogue About Ukraine

Dec. 22, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley spoke with his Russian counterpart Dec. 22 amid border tensions with Ukraine and mounting concerns of a Russian invasion in January. The call followed comments by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that high-level dialogue with Russia is sought “relatively early in the new year.”

“We’re engaged in diplomacy and deterrence at the same time,” Blinken said in a Dec. 21 press briefing in which the top diplomat repeated a threat of “massive consequences” if Russia further invades Ukraine.

Nations on NATO’s eastern flank, from the Baltics to the Black Sea, have called for additional troop rotations and capabilities to deter a Russian invasion, while Ukraine has specifically called for new air defense systems. Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said Dec. 20 that an American air defense team recently returned from Ukraine but that the Biden administration has made no decision to grant new defense assistance to Ukraine.

Blinken said he’s pursuing avenues for a potential dialogue with Russia in January, including the via the existing Strategic Stability Dialogue; the now defunct NATO-Russia Council, which Russia backed out of in October; and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors compliance of the Minsk agreement in the disputed Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine.

The Secretary of State redoubled a promise made by President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan of “very meaningful and massive response” by the United States and its allies “if Russia commits renewed acts of aggressions” but promised no further deterrence measures, such as military movements along the eastern flank of NATO.

Notwithstanding, Blinken admitted that intelligence suggests Russia is poised for an invasion.

“We’ve seen plans that Russia has to commit renewed acts of aggression against Ukraine that it could implement on very short order,” Blinken said.

A Ukrainian defense official declined to comment on Blinken’s remarks but told Air Force Magazine Dec. 22: “Having Russia as [a] neighbor, we are always concerned.”

A readout of the call between Milley and Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov said the two leaders discussed “regional security-related issues of concern … to ensure risk reduction and operational de-confliction.” The statement from Joint Staff Spokesperson Col. Dave Butler said that, consistent with their past phone calls, the two leaders agreed to keep the specific details of their conversation private.

Kirby said in a press gaggle Dec. 21 that Russian de-escalation was a matter for the State Department to address but that the presence of 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders is still a source of regional instability.

“We still believe that there’s time and space for diplomacy and discussion to achieve a result that does not increase the instability or [violate] the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Kirby said in the official transcript.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III planned, as part of his holiday phone calls Dec. 22, to speak with members of the Florida Army National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team now conducting joint training in western Ukraine.

Ukraine has called for a pathway to NATO entry, something Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared is a red line for Russia. Putin has also worked to discourage military assistance to Ukraine and warned against a buildup on NATO’s eastern flank.

“We continue to see a significant force presence near and around the Ukraine border. It continues to be concerning,” Kirby added. “We still don’t know the full intent here. And there’s no indication that President Putin has made a decision one way or another.”

MacDill Picked as the Next KC-46 Base

Dec. 22, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force selected MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., as its next preferred location for the KC-46 on Dec. 21, setting up the Florida installation to receive 24 of the new aerial tankers in the coming years.

The KC-46 will replace Active-duty KC-135s currently at MacDill with the 6th Air Refueling Wing, the Air Force said in a statement.

“This basing action and the KC-46A Pegasus coming to MacDill is representative of the commitment to air refueling and airpower and what this does for our country,” Col. Benjamin R. Jonsson, 6th ARW commander, said at an event celebrating the announcement. “ … So to be able to do this for decades to come, it shows the importance of that refueling capability and what it means for our nation and our nation’s defense. And it means that it’s going to be happening right here from MacDill Air Force Base, by these Airmen and by the Airmen and service members and civilians that follow us. … We are excited for this big news at MacDill.”

MacDill’s selection comes over Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., the other candidate location announced by the Air Force in May. A final basing decision is still forthcoming, dependent on the results of an environmental impact analysis, which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2023. Fairchild, tabbed as a “reasonable alternative” to MacDill, will also undergo an environmental impact analysis.

“The KC-46 mission factors that [the Pentagon] considered are central to what our partners do every day,” Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), whose congressional district includes MacDill, said at the announcement event, adding that she was “thrilled.”

“They were looking at the capacity of MacDill. They were looking at environmental issues, and they were looking at support from the community—how do we support our military families,” Castor said.

The Air Force’s decision was also hailed by Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.), who represents the neighboring district and joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers who sent a letter to the Air Force in June promoting MacDill’s candidacy.

“MacDill is the right choice for the KC-46’s new operating base,” Franklin said in a statement. “It is home to 33 mission partner units from all branches of service, including U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, making it an ideal setting for these aircraft.”

Pending the final basing decision, MacDill will be the sixth main operating base for the KC-46. The Air Force currently fields Active-duty KC-46s at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J.; Reserve KC-46s at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.; and Air National Guard KC-46s at Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H.. Travis Air Force Base, Calif., has also been selected to receive the tanker in the coming years.

Fairchild, meanwhile, is still home to the Air Force’s only super tanking wing, with four KC-135 squadrons and 63 total aircraft. In statements, however, lawmakers from Washington made their displeasure with the KC-46 decision clear.

“I am incredibly disappointed with this decision, as the Air Force has once again chosen to overlook the clear capacity, location, and personnel advantages that make Fairchild the absolute best location for Main Operating Base Six,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “Let’s not mince words, the Air Force has made the wrong choice with regard to stationing our next generation of refueling tankers—and I want to know how this decision was reached.”

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) added, “I am disappointed to hear that Fairchild Air Force Base was not selected to be the next home of the KC-46 tanker fleet. While this is not the news we were hoping for, I have no doubt that Fairchild will continue to serve as a center of excellence for the KC-135 fleet and play a critical role in refueling missions.”

New Data Indicates Declining AFCENT Airpower Demand

Dec. 21, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Pentagon released previously withheld statistics Dec. 17 indicating changing demand for airpower in Afghanistan as the U.S. prepared to withdraw from that country last spring. U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT) withheld the data for the months February 2020 through November 2021 “due to sensitivity surrounding the implementation of the U.S.-Taliban agreement,” said Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby ahead of the data release.

Data for the Iraq and Syria campaign during the same period show steady demand for airpower, with 2021 sorties for airlift and airdrops; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance holding steady, while demand for supplies and passengers increased. Tanker and strike sorties, however, were down from 2020, furthering a downward trend since 2019.

Kirby said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III directed the release by AFCENT, which provided two slides showing data for 2014-2021. Earlier data is available on AFCENT’s website and goes back to 2012.

The new data shows airstrikes in Afghanistan ramped up quickly in the fall of 2020, with the number of weapons released increasing from 56 in September 2020 to 246 in October. Weapons released remained over 100 through April before beginning a steady decline to 18 in July, before the U.S. pullout in August. After expending 153 that month, airstrikes ceased.

Kirby did not interpret the trends but said the department is committed to providing regular summaries again. AFCENT, Air Mobility Command, and Air Combat Command did not immediately provide context on the data.

Declining Air Strikes

Numbers of sorties by manned strike aircraft fell steadily in both Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria from 2016 to 2021 with a notable drop in actual strikes—sorties with at least one weapon released—in Afghanistan in the last three years.

Manned strike sorties flown in Iraq/Syria actually started out more than five times higher than in Afghanistan in 2016 (21,181 compared to 5,162), but the sorties fell steadily in both missions since then, with Iraq/Syria’s dropping by two-thirds to 7,059 in 2021; and Afghanistan’s dropping by more than half to 2,596.

However, manned strikes did tick up in Afghanistan for a time.

Strikes by manned aircraft more than doubled in Afghanistan from 2018 to 2019, from 966 to 2,434; then dropped by three-quarters in 2020, to 660; then again by nearly half in 2021, to 372. Nevertheless, such strikes in Afghanistan still far outpaced those in Iraq/Syria during the same three-year period.

Manned sorties with at least one weapon released	Iraq & Syria	Afghanistan
2016	11,825	615
2017	9,944	1,248
2018	1,591	966
2019	976	2,434
2020	255	660
2021	116	372

Source: AFCENT

The Air Force’s slides do not report numbers of strikes by remotely piloted aircraft, nor how many RPA sorties were flown, instead providing totals of weapons released by both manned and remotely piloted aircraft. The slides don’t make clear how many weapons were fired by RPA versus how many were fired by manned aircraft.

Nevertheless, a trend in strikes can be discerned, with the Afghanistan campaign outpacing the Iraq/Syria effort in total weapons released from 2019 to 2021. In 2019, 7,423 weapons were fired in Afghanistan, compared to 4,729 in Iraq/Syria. In 2020, total weapons fired in Afghanistan numbered 1,631 compared to 1,188 in Iraq/Syria. The following year, in 2021, total weapons fired in Afghanistan amounted to 801 compared to 554 in Iraq/Syria.

ISR missions in Afghanistan outpaced the Iraq/Syria campaign from 2016 to 2020 then dropped dramatically from 14,834 in 2020 to 4,814 in 2021. ISR missions in Iraq/Syria remained consistently around 13,000 from 2019 through 2021.

AMC Efforts Split between Two Theaters Until 2021

From 2016 to 2021, Afghanistan received the most airlift and airdrop sorties, airlift cargo, and airlift passengers between the two theaters in all but two cases—airlift cargo in 2016; and airlift and airdrop sorties in 2021—while Iraq/Syria led in tanker sorties, fuel offloaded, and aircraft refuelings in all six years.

In the Iraq/Syria campaign, tanker sorties began to decline in 2017, from 13,243 to just 2,716 in 2021. More drastically, aircraft refuelings dropped from 80,912 in 2016 to 13,137 in 2021.

The Afghanistan noncombat evacuation operation in August 2021 likely contributed to that country outpacing the Iraq/Syria campaign in both airlift cargo and airlift passengers despite reporting fewer months.

Space Force Launches Website Aimed at Potential Recruits, Public Education

Dec. 21, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

A new Space Force website aimed at recruiting the next generation of Guardians and educating the public on the new service’s mission launched Dec. 20, the service’s second birthday.

SpaceForce.com, like AirForce.com, details the core missions and career fields of the new service. It also includes a video of the Space Force’s recruiting commercial, “Origins,” which emphasizes the importance of the space domain and the need for a military branch dedicated to it; and links to the Space Force’s recruiting-specific social media profiles, @gospaceforce on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA4jBiwXArM

Visitors to the website can also survey details on the requirements and application process for enlisted service members, officers, and civilians. The site includes overviews of each career field, complete with qualifications needed, training, and tasks associated with each.

Including these details was crucial, Air Force Recruiting Service director of strategic marketing Barry Dickey said in an interview, because of how many Space Force recruits will interact with the site.

“I think probably 100 percent of recruits will have visited the SpaceForce.com website at some point. When you fill out an application, unless you walk into a recruiter’s office and fill out an application, this is where we get the majority of them,” Dickey said.

So far, the Space Force has had no trouble attracting interest from recruits. Thousands of Airmen, Sailors, Soldiers, and Marines applied to transfer to the new service, and the Air Force Recruiting Service met its goals in fiscal 2021 of about 400 enlisted Guardians and roughly three dozen officers from the civilian population.

Those goals are increasing in fiscal 2022, to 521 enlisted Guardians and about 70 officers. Yet the Space Force is expected to be the nation’s smallest military service by a long shot—so that means SpaceForce.com isn’t just about trying to attract as many recruits as possible.

“When the Space Force stood up, we knew in speaking with [Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond], we knew that our No. 1 job as marketing and advertising was really not to generate leads, which sounds kind of counterintuitive, but our No. 1 job was to expand the knowledge of the population about Space Force and its mission and to build the brand of Space Force,” Dickey said.

“So even if we don’t get the amount of … leads who sign up and fill out an application, what we’ll get is visitors to the site that might be influencers and business leaders and anyone who’s interested in the Space Force and what it does—and who can then go out and hopefully take the message from the website and go out and kind of be our recruiters.”

To that end, the website addresses some basic questions other services might not have to address, such as “What’s the difference between Space Force and NASA?” and “What is the Space Force’s mission?”

At different points, AirForce.com receives roughly 2 million visitors per month. The goal is for SpaceForce.com to build up to those kinds of numbers, Dickey said.

To help it get to that goal, the Air Force Recruiting Service marketing team will look to add features to the site in the coming months, such as “online gaming, virtual interaction, probably some chat functionality, more and more content about the Space Force as that branch of the service grows, and probably a lot more personal experiences with Guardians that are out there that are willing to share their experience with recruits,” Dickey said, similar to AirForce.com’s “Ask an Airman” section.

Plans for SpaceForce.com were first discussed almost as soon as the new service stood up in December 2019. But due to delays caused in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts on the new site really ramped up about six months ago, Dickey said, with a strong push by the Air Force Recruiting Service and its marketing firm.