F-35 Not as Survivable as Previously Hoped, HASC Chair Says

Aug. 31, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Upgrades in missile technology over the past several years have made the F-35 less survivable than previously hoped, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Aug. 31 as he pushed for more investment in smaller, unmanned platforms.

Speaking at a virtual event hosted by the Brookings Institution, Rep. Adam Smith (D.-Wash) was quick to note that the F-35 remains more survivable than other fighters “by quite a bit,” pointing to the F-16 for comparison.

“But it’s also got some environments that it’s not going to be able to get into because of how much missile technology has improved since we started building the thing,” Smith said.

Lockheed Martin, the maker of the stealthy fifth-generation fighter, claims the F-35 is the “most lethal, survivable, and connected fighter jet in the world.” The Air Force plans to buy 1,763 of the aircraft, which would make it the service’s largest fleet.

Smith, on the other hand, has made no secret of his displeasure with the F-35 program. In March, he referred to the fighter as a “rathole,” and in June, he slammed the program’s high sustainment costs.

Most of his criticism has focused on the issue of sustainment, where cost overruns have become a recurring theme for many in Congress. Smith reiterated that theme Aug. 31, pointing to a provision he included in the chairman’s markup of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act released Aug. 30 that would limit the number of F-35As the Air Force could maintain starting in October 2026. As of May 7, 2021, the Air Force had about 283 F-35s in its fleet, and it requested to buy 48 more in its fiscal 2022 budget. The exact number of airframes the service would be able to maintain would be determined by how much sustainment costs in fiscal 2025 exceed the service’s stated goal of $4.1 million per tail per year.

The issue of survivability, however, presents a different challenge. In the past, the Air Force has said the F-35 has performed “very well in contested environments,” with the goal of progressing to “outstanding.”

At the same time, the service has also acknowledged that broad control of the air in a high-end conflict is no longer achievable, aiming instead for “temporary windows of superiority” in “highly-contested threat environments.”

In such highly contested threat environments, Smith said platforms such as the F-35 are simply too big to go completely undetected. Instead, he advocated for more investment in “smaller, more survivable platforms, in many cases unmanned platforms.”

In particular, Smith pointed to the concept of drone swarms as potentially taking on some of the missions originally envisioned for the F-35.

“We’ve seen this play out in some of the fighting that has happened in Syria and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict,” Smith said. “You’ve got this undetectable swarm of drones that can still pack a pretty powerful punch—you can’t see it coming, you’ve got a devil of a time shooting it down. That’s why we make investments in that. In many ways, that can accomplish a lot of missions that some of the bigger platforms can’t because they’re easier to see.”

The concept of drone swarms has been on the Air Force’s radar for several years now, with former acquisition boss Will Roper in 2019 calling it the future of warfare. At the same time, the service has also invested in platforms to defend against such swarms, including a high-powered microwave to wipe out wide swathes of drones at once.

In addition to his criticism of the F-35’s survivability, Smith also pushed for more competition in the program, particularly in relation to the engine. Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine has been the source of lengthy repairs and delays, and both GE and Pratt are currently taking part in the Air Force’s Adaptive Engine Transition Program.

The AETP is primarily intended for future platforms such as the Next-Generation Air Dominance program (NGAD), but “these are engines that could potentially be used in the F-35 as well,” Smith said.

“We have the ability now, I think, to create engine competition going forward,” he added. “We are going to push engine competition because that’s one of the big things that has come up. The engines are … burning out faster and taking longer to fix than we expected. I think we have the ability to push engine competition, and we’re going to do that.”

In his 2022 NDAA markup, Smith proposed directing the Pentagon’s acquisition boss to submit to Congress a “strategy for continued development, integration, and operational fielding of the Adaptive Engine Technology Program propulsion system into the U.S. Air Force fleet of F-35A aircraft beginning in fiscal year 2027.”

Brookings Institute/YouTube

NRO Innovating Faster in Era of Great Power Space Competition

Aug. 31, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—The National Reconnaissance Office is further integrating with the Space Force and U.S. Space Command while also innovating faster to keep up with the threat posed by adversaries in space, NRO leaders said at the Space Symposium.

“We are taking a fresh look at the philosophy,” said Space Force Col. Chad Davis, NRO director of the Office of Space Launch, in an interview with Air Force Magazine. Davis, who has spent 10 of his 26 years in service detailed to the NRO, said recent actions by China and Russia are pushing the NRO to pick up its game. “That’s driven by the environment that we’re seeing in space today,” he said. “The threat demands it, the environment demands it, and the organization is stepping up to respond.”

Davis said even for such a flat, innovative organization, cradle-to-grave satellite design and launch for intelligence collection is evolving faster.

“I’ve been around the organization for a long time. I’m seeing even a fresh look on that, and for a very innovative, agile organization, we’re taking it to the next level,” he said.

NRO Director Chris Scolese, in a keynote address Aug. 24, highlighted the fact that he flew to Colorado Springs with Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond then participated in a reception together with U.S. Space Command chief Army Gen. James H. Dickinson.

“Let’s clear up the way we work with Space Force and SPACECOM,” he said. “Since the stand-up of Space Force and Space Command two years ago, we have been working as intimately as you can imagine: on operations, on capability development, and most importantly, on the road ahead.”

Scolese said he, Raymond, and Dickinson recently agreed to a Protect and Defend Strategic Framework covering national security in space and the relationship between DOD and the intelligence community on everything from acquisition to operations.

“What China and Russia have already shown is that space is now a race,” Scolese said. “It’s a competition. It’s a fight. And if we’re not careful, it’s going to become a knock-down, drag-out brawl.”

Scolese said China is investing money, manpower, and research in counterspace capabilities. “China is showing an unquenchable drive to get ahead of us and take what’s been our operational and intelligence advantage since JFK was in office,” he said. “How we fend off this competition and where we go from here largely depends on how much we accelerate our development and how much we’re able to improve the capabilities we already have in space.”

Scolese said the NRO put 12 payloads into orbit on six launches in 2020, a record pace.

“[But] to keep pace in this power competition, we have to do even more,” he said. NRO has 24 projects in the pipeline, including architectural changes to improve resiliency. The NRO program “Architecture After Next” will include large and small constellations across multiple orbits, he said.

Davis has been managing the launches.

While the space launch director declined to describe the size of the payloads NRO is launching, he said the industry has ramped up its capacity for small payloads and that NRO has scheduled Delta IV Heavy class rockets.

“What I see now that’s different from even five years ago is the expansion of the small launch capabilities and the growth there,” he said. “I’d say the pace is also different today than even five years ago.”

Davis declined to say if Space Force is protecting NRO satellites other than to acknowledge that USSF and NRO satellites operate in the same domain.

“There’s really a very coupled interaction between the Space Force and the NRO,” he said.

One major difference, he said, between launching DOD satellites and NRO satellites is the streamlined command structure.

“Because we’re a member of the intelligence community, we are subject to a different authority set than strictly a DOD agency,” he said. “We can be, because of that, a little more agile.”

As the director of the office of space launch, Davis need only pick up the phone and call the NRO director to solve a problem.

“If I run into a roadblock that’s above my level to fix, I’ve got a direct line to him. So, he can engage on that very rapidly,” Davis said. “There’s a team of folks who are working tirelessly to execute our launch mission and put critical intelligence capabilities in orbit to keep them safe.”

OPINION: Assume Disruption When Implementing DOD’s ‘North Star’ JADC2 Strategy

Aug. 30, 2021 | By John Dolan

The Department of Defense recently declared it now has a “North Star,” with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s signing of the joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) strategy.

To be clear, JADC2 is not a singular program but instead a strategy designed to accelerate decision-making in an increasingly complex threat environment. The big idea is that if our military commanders can decide faster, then our armed forces can act faster, giving them a clear advantage over the adversaries of our country and its allies.

Industry will play a critical role in developing the underlying systems and architectures needed to make JADC2 a reality. While dozens of capabilities will ultimately contribute to the success of JADC2, three stand to shape its very foundation—artificial intelligence, resilient communications, and universal translation.

The joint force will depend on automated networks and AI to efficiently cull through petabytes of data. The Pentagon’s recent launch of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Acceleration Initiative underscores the Defense Department’s focus to prepare military commanders and operators for this new data-driven threat landscape. Applying these technological advances will help operators manage, analyze, and act on unprecedented volumes of data.

Raytheon Intelligence & Space is integrating predictive algorithms and AI into technologies, such as our proposed system for the U.S. Army, Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, or TITAN, to optimize use of the overwhelming amount of data sources available. The integrated system can autonomously sift through massive amounts of sensor data with the help of AI to rapidly find and track potential threats, offering increased speed and precision to mission operators on the ground.

As our allied forces pivot toward future contested security environments, one thing is certain—peer threats have the capability to strike and hamper access to information in every domain. The future battlespace will need to account for limited and severed access to systems and resources. As a result, it is imperative that the JADC2 framework not devolve into a single point of failure. Rather, industry must strive to provide solutions that operate sufficiently across resilient open architectures and in degraded conditions to sustain joint force and allied operations. Core to bringing JADC2 to fruition is embracing the concept of degradation dominance as a Center for New American Security Information and Command study notes.

Recognizing that the multi-domain battlespace will have disrupted connectivity, secure communications must be self-healing to ensure data is delivered in those crucial moments. And secure communications will play a significant role in preserving JADC2’s data integrity and trustworthiness due to the amount of data available.

Resilient communications across all domains, especially in space, will be key to mission success. Safeguarding the delivery and management of data in space will fill the existing operational gap of accelerating data sharing in tactical conflicts. It will also expand the joint force’s orchestration of assets to conduct automated tasking from space.

To succeed in this potentially fragmented environment, our technology community can provide creative applications for a universal translator to connect the future joint force. JADC2 will hinge on rapidly sharing data across the services’ existing and future systems in every domain. The integration of a translation gateway must be factored in to accelerate the sharing of data and aid military commanders in making better command decisions.

Given the challenge ahead to stand up a fully interoperable joint force with coalition partners, a “Rosetta Stone” network will help fill an operational gap to pass data between systems and across all of the services as the CNAS study reports. There will be different communications requirements in every domain, including new data translation capabilities. For example, solutions such as DARPA’s Dynamic Network Adaptation for Mission Optimization program can provide the channel to share data seamlessly in future contested environments. Advanced networking technologies like DyNAMO will be essential to developing a JADC2 architecture that effectively serves our forces in peer-to-peer conflicts.

As domains converge in the modern connected battlespace, industry has a critical role to provide pragmatic and effective solutions to turn JADC2 into a reality. The approval of the Defense Department’s JADC2 strategy marks an inflection point, and the next steps of its implementation will be consequential as Lt. Gen. Dennis A. Crall, CIO/J6 of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a recent Department of Defense news conference said, “It’s now implementation time. Planning is good. Talk is good. Now it’s delivery time, and we’ve been given a clear signal to begin pushing these outcomes to the people who need them.”

The urgency and the strategy are clear. The innovators of industry and government must evolve our thinking and approach to develop a JADC2 architecture that serves the joint force well in contested conditions by accounting for AI-driven solutions, degradation dominance, and universal translation pathways. Incorporating these design assumptions will help ensure we have a strengthened joint and allied defense for true multi-domain operations.

Author’s Note: John Dolan is the vice president of Air and Space Dominance at Raytheon Intelligence & Space. He is a retired Air Force lieutenant general who last served as director of operations on the Joint Staff from 2016 to 2018.

After 20 Years of War, Afghanistan Withdrawal is Officially Complete

Aug. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The final U.S. Air Force C-17 has cleared Afghanistan airspace, officially completing the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan and marking the end of nearly 20 years of war, U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. announced Aug. 30.

“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals, and vulnerable Afghans,” McKenzie said in a press briefing.

The departure also marks the end of a turbulent evacuation process that reached a crisis point in the past few weeks, as the Taliban seized control of the country.

Since then, thousands of Afghans fleeing Taliban rule swarmed Hamid Karzai International Airport, and more than 5,800 U.S. troops were deployed to secure the airfield and help evacuate Americans, Afghans, and other citizens from partner nations.

All told, around 123,000 civilians were evacuated since the mission began in late July, McKenzie said, with more than 79,000 leaving since Aug. 14. That figure includes more than 6,000 American civilians, “which we believe represents the vast majority of those who wanted to leave at this time,” he said.

When U.S. troops boarded the last flight out of Kabul, there were no more evacuees left in the airport, McKenzie said. But he did acknowledge that there are American civilians who were left behind, estimating that the total number is “in the very low hundreds.”

Some of those Americans, he said, did not wish to leave. Others could not reach the airport as the security situation devolved. At different times, the State Department urged Americans not to come to certain gates around the airport due to security threats, not from the Taliban but from the Islamic State-Khorasan branch.

ISIS-K, as the group is often called, launched a deadly attack Aug. 26, using a suicide bomber to kill 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghans outside an airport gate. In response, the U.S. launched an airstrike that killed two ISIS-K planners and struck an explosive-laden truck in Kabul.

Those actions, McKenzie claimed Aug. 30, were “very disruptive to their attack plans” and were key in allowing the final U.S. planes to depart safely. Those final flights were also covered by what McKenzie called “overwhelming airpower” overhead.

The very final U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan left at 3:29 p.m. Eastern time, 11:59 p.m. locally, McKenzie said. The last two personnel on the ground were Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, and U.S. acting ambassador to Afghanistan Ross L. Wilson.

As American troops departed, they were forced to destroy equipment to ensure it would not fall into Taliban hands. In addition to a number of Humvees and armored vehicles, troops also destroyed 73 aircraft—“most of them were non-mission-capable to begin with, but certainly they’ll never be able to be flown again,” McKenzie said.

Hurricane Ida Spares Most Gulf Region Air Force Bases

Aug. 30, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force bases in the Gulf of Mexico region reported minimal damage and no impact on missions as a result of Hurricane Ida, the largest hurricane ever to make landfall in the region. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., is a designated relief staging area for the disaster and is serving as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s incident support base in the region.

Ida came ashore in Louisiana on Aug. 29, with a 15-foot storm surge and winds up to 150 miles per hour, just shy of being a Category 5 hurricane, the most powerful to make landfall in the state’s history. Power was out for more than one million Louisiana and Mississippi residents by midday Aug. 30, and one person was reported killed by a falling tree branch, but Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) told residents to prepare for a “much higher” casualty count.

Levees in the New Orleans region largely held, having been bolstered by some $40 billion worth of reconstruction and reinforcement in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the same region on the same day in 2005, inflicting massive damage on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

A damage assessment team is evaluating Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., near the point of impact, for storm damage, a base spokesperson said. However, “the base has survived the hurricane well, with minimal damage reported so far. Once the storm has cleared the area, assessment teams will continue to check for damage,” she said.

Keesler leadership is checking that “all personnel who sheltered on base and other personnel who reside in local communities are safe and are given the most up-to-date information to stay out of potentially dangerous areas,” the spokesperson said. Base emergency personnel “train year round for this type of situation,” said Lt. Col. David Mays, 81st Mission Support Group commander.

“Please know that our Airmen, Guardians, Sailors, Marines, and our mission partners here at Keesler are safe,” said 81st Training Wing commander Col. William Hunter. The base was prepared for the storm, and base personnel are getting it back to “normal operations as Ida makes its way further north,” he said.

Maxwell Air Force Base was designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Air Force North as an Incident Support Base for Ida. Between the evening of Aug. 27 and the morning of Aug. 30, some 230 FEMA emergency support tractor trailers arrived at the base for future deployment to hard-hit areas.

The base is also a staging area for the Army Corps of Engineers, which stands ready to respond to aid requests in the Southwest Region, a Maxwell spokesperson said. The trucks are carrying “water, meals, generators, and other equipment” for deployment “in a zone near the impacted areas,” with distribution determined by need, the spokesperson said. Some of the trucks will press on to Camp Shelby, near Hattiesburg, Miss., to be closer to the affected areas.

Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., a flying training base, did not evacuate aircraft, and a base spokesperson said the facility experienced high winds and heavy rainfall, but no damage, and no personnel were evacuated.

Barksdale Air Force Base, near Bossier City, La., did not fly its B-52s out ahead of the storm, nor did it receive any aircraft from other bases, and no personnel were evacuated, a base spokesperson said. Ida “passed the surrounding area and did not directly affect the installation,” she said. The 2nd Bomb Wing and the base are ready to respond to aid requests, she added.

An Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., spokesperson said no aircraft or personnel were evacuated there and the storm had “no impact” on base missions.

Ida was expected to continue north, still dropping heavy rainfall. Tennessee suffered severe flooding, and state officials there told residents to prepare for significant flash flooding. The base website for Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn., instructed personnel to be prepared for flash flooding, possible tornadoes, and heavy thunderstorms as Ida moves north.

HASC Chair Wants New Cost Estimates Before Air Force Awards LRSO Procurement Deal

Aug. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is looking to stop the Air Force’s procurement of the nuclear Long-Range Standoff weapon system, at least until he gets some more information.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) released his chairman’s markup of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on Aug. 30, and included in it were a number of provisions related to the LRSO, the Air Force’s replacement for the nuclear AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile.

Should Smith’s provisions be included in the final version of the bill, the Air Force would not be able to award a procurement contract for the LRSO until the department’s Secretary provides updated cost estimates for the procurement portion of the program, certification that the Future Years Defense Program will include funding estimates based off that new cost estimate, and a copy of the department’s justification and approval for awarding a sole-source contract for the program.

The Air Force announced in April 2020 that it was proceeding with Raytheon as the sole-source contractor for the LRSO, unexpectedly ending Lockheed Martin’s efforts more than a year early. Several months later, the service awarded Raytheon a $2 billion contract to engineer and develop the next-generation air-launched nuclear missile.

In his markup, Smith specifically directed that the Air Force Secretary should address “how the Secretary will manage the cost of the program in the absence of competition.”

The chairman’s mark comes in the wake of several reports claiming costs are actually higher than the $10 billion figure estimated by the Congressional Budget Office in a 2017 report, which projected that cost to produce 1,000 missiles, for a unit cost of $10 million apiece.

Bloomberg News reported in July that the Pentagon’s Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation had estimated that development and procurement costs for the program would actually be $2 billion more than the Air Force’s estimate, and the Arms Control Association has pegged the cost of the new system, when counting the cost of refurbishing W80-4 warheads, at $20 billion.

The updates to those warheads is another concern Smith raised in his markup, which would require Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to brief the congressional service committees within 90 days of the NDAA being enacted on how potential delays updating the W80-4 could affect the LRSO’s initial operational capability.

The planned IOC for the LRSO is 2030, then-Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Timothy M. Ray told Congress in May.

Other issues Smith wants Kendall to address in a briefing are how the LRSO “may serve as a hedge to delays in other nuclear modernization efforts”; potentially changing the program’s budget profile to ensure it remains on schedule; and reconciling the differences between the Air Force’s and Pentagon’s differing cost estimates.

Smith’s markup also touched on the other next-generation component of the Air Force’s nuclear arsenal, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. With GBSD set to conduct its first flight tests in 2023, Smith’s markup calls for the Air Force to conduct a review of the program’s cost, schedule, and execution, as well as its ability to “leverage digital engineering,” “implement industry best practices,” and take advantage of competition for contracts in the operations and maintenance phase.

Northrop Grumman was the only bidder for the GBSD contract. Initial operational capability for the GBSD is expected in 2029.

The full House Armed Services Committee is set to meet Sept. 1 to consider Smith’s markup.

Afghanistan Threat Remains High as Withdrawal Reaches Final Hours

Aug. 30, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The threat of another Islamic State-Khorasan attack on the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, and on U.S. troops based there remains high, but Pentagon leaders say there is “still time” to evacuate remaining Americans before a self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal.

With a terrorist attack declared “imminent,” the U.S. struck an explosive-laden truck Aug. 29. Later in the day, a U.S. Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM) system repelled one of five rockets launched at the airport, with one rocket falling within the Kabul airfield and two landing nearby without incident.

Army Maj. Gen. William D. “Hank” Taylor, Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, said Aug. 30 the strike on the truck was necessary to prevent another “high-profile attack against both coalition/U.S. forces and other Afghan civilians,” though he declined to confirm reports of civilian casualties. “Commanders will always minimize collateral damage,” he added.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said the airstrike against the truck was conducted with “over the horizon” capabilities, but he would not name the origin of those assets and said only that discussions with neighboring nations were continuing. Past airstrikes are known to have originated from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, a commute of some four hours each way. The Defense Department for months has attempted to secure basing agreements with countries in the region for easier intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and closer airstrikes.

Kirby said the capabilities are in place to evacuate the several hundred Americans still in Afghanistan, not including troops, even though just over a day remains to complete the mission.

“There is still time, and the State Department is still in touch with additional American citizens,” Kirby said. However, he declined to confirm how many Americans are trying to reach the airport as the clock runs out. Kirby also refused to say what time zone would be used for measuring the Aug. 31 deadline.

More than 122,000 Americans, coalition forces, and Afghans have now been evacuated since the mission began in late July, including 5,400 American citizens.

The Defense Department is coordinating a multi-staged operation to return Americans home and move Afghans to third countries for processing. Presently, 26,000 Afghans await forward movement and processing at six locations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. Another 22,000 are being temporarily housed in three locations in the U.S. European Command AOR. In the U.S. homeland, U.S. Northern Command is managing 13,000 individuals at five locations.

Six flights to Dulles International Airport, Va., and Philadelphia International Airport are scheduled to take some 3,700 individuals to the United States.

Taylor said 28 flights departed the airport in the past 24 hours, evacuating just 1,200 individuals. He would not say if the reduced throughput of individuals was a result of their failure to reach the airport or the movement of equipment out of country on the departing aircraft.

Taylor also confirmed that DOD is destroying some assets on-site to prevent them from falling “into the hands of anybody else.”

Strategic Command Needs New Three-Way Deterrence Model, Deputy Commander Says

Aug. 27, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

U.S. Strategic Command is struggling to find a deterrence model that will work for three comparably armed nuclear powers, but it is not seeking to match Russia’s new kinds of nuclear weapons, which aren’t covered under existing treaties, said Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere.

The U.S. has “fairly coherent two-body deterrence models,” Bussiere said in a streaming seminar presented by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We have decades of experience” within the Pentagon and academia providing a foundation for deterrence between the U.S. and Russia.

But as for a three-way Cold War that includes China, “that’s a dynamic I don’t think our nation has teased out,” he acknowledged. “That’s a challenge. … There’s some serious intellectual energy that needs to be applied to this problem.” He said the situation is on the minds of strategic leaders “24/7, 365.”

Bussiere reported that China is developing its nuclear capabilities at “a breathtaking pace” and has been conducting more ballistic missile tests, of various classes, than “all other countries combined.” China’s nuclear development is seeing “a rapid expansion, with purpose.” When pressed as to when “the crossover point”—when China actually deploys more nuclear weapons than Russia—will come, he said, “We believe, in the next few years.”

China and Russia have “different national objectives,” Bussiere noted, and need to be deterred differently. However, he also said, “We’re seeing indications that those nations are cooperating across different spectrums and presenting a cooperative deterrence model.”

Both China and Russia have “the ability to unilaterally escalate a conflict to any level of violence in any domain, in any geographic location, at any time, with any instrument of their national power. And I’d offer that we haven’t faced a … global situation like that in 30-plus years.”

China can no longer be viewed as a “lesser included case” because it will “soon surpass” Russia’s strategic capability. Yet, there is no framework under which to negotiate arms limits with China, and China has expressed no interest in creating one.

“We need to think about a deterrence theory that accounts for a three-party nuclear capability,” he noted. The U.S. invested “great intellectual input and energy” on bipolar deterrence 70 years ago and now needs to do the same for the new multipolar world.

“We need … a deep understanding of how we are going to deter two global nuclear powers that have global aspirations and impacts—and do that as we maintain the stability and provide extended deterrence,” he said.

China’s nuclear stockpile is still dwarfed by that of the U.S. and Russia, but Bussiere said, “We don’t approach it from purely a numbers game. It is what is operationally fielded, … status of forces, posture of those fielded forces. So it is not just a stockpile number.”

Bussiere admitted to being “baffled” by Russia’s development of new kinds of nuclear missiles, such as the nuclear-armed Kinzhal hypersonic missile and the Poseidon torpedo, which when launched against a coastline could cause a radioactive tsunami across a broad portion of a coastline. The U.S. has no analogous weapons, and Bussiere indicated there’s no plan to obtain them.

“I would not recommend that we try to develop in-kind systems,” he said, adding he can’t fathom why Russia would undertake their development “after agreeing to and extending the New START treaty.” But “it begs the question, why are they developing these capabilities? Why are they expanding their non-treaty accountable stockpiles?”

He said more discussion of this inscrutable development is needed among European NATO allies because it is a concern for countries in Russia’s “near abroad.”

Bussiere suggested “international attention to those exotic capabilities and [to] question the need, and why.” If the goal is to provide stability within different arms control treaties, “why would you need to develop those capabilities?”

But he doesn’t suggest answering those developments with something similar. Rather, “from a foundational [perspective], we need to make sure we have a safe, effective, and reliable triad that can provide a foundation of strategic deterrence.” He reiterated STRATCOM’s position that “we have bought all the operational margin in our current weapon systems that we can” and that life-extending the existing triad is neither cost-effective nor strategically desirable. He also emphasized that the existing nuclear arsenal can’t merely be decommissioned until the new one reaches service but instead must be kept “credible and reliable.”

Asked how the Army can help contribute to nuclear deterrence, Bussiere said he hopes the Army War College will contribute its “intellectual horsepower” to the discussion on deterrence in a multi-polar world “and continue to expand your capabilities and capacity that provide the conventional deterrence framework for approaching our adversaries.” The Army also has officers in STRATCOM who are “exquisite nuclear experts” who contribute to the mission “every day,” he added.

Cotton Relieves Ray at Top of Global Strike Command

Aug. 27, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Gen. Anthony J. Cotton received his fourth star and took charge of Air Force Global Strike Command on Aug. 27, pledging to shepherd the two Air Force legs of the nuclear triad through a “major transition,” a reference both to much-needed modernization and increasing strategic competition.

Cotton, a career missile and space officer, cited rising threats from Russia and China, pointedly noting reports that China has added numerous intercontinental ballistic missile silos and that Russian President Vladimir Putin claims to have modernized 80 percent of his nation’s nuclear arsenal.

But Cotton also noted the challenges facing the Air Force’s nuclear enterprise, citing modernization like the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent and the Long Range Standoff weapon system, which will each take about a decade to mature. “We need to masterfully execute the modernization of the nuclear portfolio,” Cotton said. “We need to have agile technology infused in our systems, ready to adapt to future challenges. We also need to sustain our current force and keep it capable and ready until replacements arrive.”

AFGSC must heed the call of call to “accelerate change or lose” voiced by Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.

Cotton takes command of AFGSC after nearly two years as its deputy, serving under Gen. Timothy M. Ray, who retired in July and officially handed over the reins Aug. 27.

“Tony, I couldn’t have asked for a better teammate,” Ray said. “We never had to be boss and deputy, we were just two senior leaders trying to sort it all out. I couldn’t have asked for a better interlocutor, a better teammate to talk at the strategic level. … In our conversations, it was an instant connection.”

China and Russia, who Ray called “Dragon” and “Bear,” pose an existential threat that Global Strike will have to contend with for years to come, Ray said. “We’re entering an unprecedented time … that will pose probably one of the toughest strategic challenges to who we are.”

Brown, who presided over the promotion ceremony that immediately preceded the change of command, praised the leadership of both Ray and Cotton, saying they had instilled an innovative, responsive culture at Global Strike Command.

“There are a few things that the Air Force can never get wrong. Ensuring the safety, the security and the reliability of two-thirds of our nation’s nuclear triad is binary. We must never fail,” Brown said. “That is why Gen. Cotton is a perfect choice to inspire and lead this command into the future. Throughout Tony’s career, he has demonstrated great vision, courage, and leadership.”

In addition to serving as deputy commander, Cotton previously commanded the 20th Air Force, the 45th Space Wing, and the 341st Missile Wing. He also served as commander and president of Air University from 2018 to 2019.

That stint in charge of the 20th Air Force, Cotton said Aug. 27, was particularly meaningful to him, because it is the same numbered air force that his father served in throughout his own Air Force career.

“He was my biggest hero, and I’m blessed to follow in the footsteps of that Chief, my dad, Chief Master Sergeant James Cotton,” he said.

Cotton is the first Black commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, and one of only a handful of Black four-star generals in Air Force history. He acknowledged that Aug. 27, saying he was “humbled to stand on the shoulders of icons” like Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the first Black brigadier general in the service, Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr., the first Black four-star, Gen. Lloyd W. “Fig” Newton, Gen. Lester L. Lyles, Gen. Larry O. Spencer, Gen. Darren W. McDew and Brown, the first Black Chief of Staff. Cotton said each of them, as well as former Chiefs of Staff Gens. Larry D. Welch and Curtis E. LeMay, were all inspirational in his career.