Report: New Stealth Aircraft and Capabilities in China’s Air Arms Eroding U.S. Advantages

Nov. 4, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Chinese air force is developing new stealth aircraft and expanding the weapons-carrying capacity of its J-20 stealth fighter, the Pentagon said in its annual report on Chinese military power, issued Nov. 3. The Pentagon said U.S. advantages in the air domain are “eroding” as China’s air and naval air forces shift from a defensive mode to power projection and long-range attack.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force and Navy (the PLAAF and PLAN) together operate the largest air forces in the Indo-Pacific region and “the third-largest in the world,” with 2,800 aircraft—not including trainers or unmanned aerial systems—of which 2,250 are combat-coded bombers, fighters, and multi-role airplanes, according to “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, 2021.”

Quoting China’s own internal defense white paper from 2019, the Pentagon said the air forces are transitioning from strictly air defense to “offensive and defensive operations,” toward building a “strategic” air force capable of projecting power at long range.

“The PLAAF is rapidly catching up to Western air forces,” the report said. “This trend is gradually eroding longstanding and significant U.S. military technical advantages” relative to the PRC “in the air domain.”

The Pentagon revealed that in addition to China’s J-20 Mighty Dragon and FC-31 stealth fighters, as well as a “strategic” stealth bomber, China is developing “new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets.”

The strategic stealth bomber, likely called the H-20, employs “many fifth-generation technologies,” having a range of 8,500 kilometers and a payload of “at least 10 metric tons.” It will have a nuclear mission in addition to filling conventional roles, and the Pentagon estimated it will take “more than a decade to develop this advanced type of bomber.” However, the DOD has consistently underestimated China’s ability to rapidly field new aircraft over the last two decades.

The near-term goal of the PLAAF is to become a more effective and capable force “proficient at joint operations.” The Chinese air force has reorganized itself into multi-role brigades and has disbanded its fighter and fighter-bomber divisions.

The Pentagon reiterated its previous report’s assertion that, within the next several years, the PLAAF will transition from obsolescence to “a majority fourth-generation force.”

The marquee aircraft of the PLAAF is the J-20, which the Pentagon said has been fielded in “limited numbers,” without being specific, although recent open-source estimates place it around 150 airplanes. China continues to develop the FC-31 Gyrfalcon two-engined lookalike of the American F-35 either for export or as “a future naval fighter for the PLAN’s next class of aircraft carriers.” China has taken delivery of all 24 Su-35 advanced Flanker aircraft it bought from Russia and continues to develop its own J-15 version.

Upgrades of the J-20 are already underway, including “increasing the number of [air-to-air missiles] the fighter can carry in its low-observable configuration” as well as “installing thrust-vectoring engine nozzles, and adding supercruise capability” by installing indigenous WS-15 engines. Early models of the J-20 relied on Russian engines, and China watchers are divided over whether PLAAF’s engine suppliers have overcome production problems with high-performance fighter engines.

The report does not include developments in China’s military since 2020. Just in October 2021, China allowed images to circulate of a two-seat J-20 taxiing—suggesting a manned/unmanned teaming role for the backseater—and a refined version of the FC-31 in flight. The FC-31 images showed a catapult launch bar on the nose landing gear and a wing-fold mechanism on the wings, clearly indicating the jet is headed for carrier service.

China’s nascent strategic bomber capability is embodied in an upgraded H-6N, a derivative of the Russian Tu-16 “Badger,” which boasts an air refueling capability for longer range and recessed carrying space on the fuselage for an “air-launched ballistic missile.” Other variants of the H-6 are being upgraded for long-range attacks of targets in the “second island chain” perimeter of China in the Pacific.

Other new aircraft in China’s air force include the GX-11, a variant of the Y-9, used for jamming and electronic countermeasures, “designed to disrupt an adversary’s battlespace awareness at long ranges.” In addition to the Russian Il-78 Midas aerial tanker, China has modified some H-6U bombers into the tanker role. A tanker version of China’s Y-20 transport, which resembles the American C-17, is also in development. While the report says deliveries of the Y-20 are underway, it did not give numbers.

Another new aircraft is the KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft, an advance over the KJ-2000 and KJ-200 variants. This AWACS-like airplane with a circular radome housing active electronically scanned array radars, is also believed to be used for networking various parts of the joint Chinese forces.

The Pentagon drew on showcased systems in the People’s Republic of China’s 70th Anniversary parade in 2019 to describe many of China’s unmanned aircraft, noting the new Gongji-11 stealthy flying-wing aircraft, believed to be capable of carrying weapons and a host of systems meant to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

In addition, the report called out the “large dual-engine TW356 transport UAV that suspends a large cargo pod between the two large engine nacelles” as a noteworthy development. The Xianglong “joined-wing high altitude” unmanned aircraft, a rough analog to the Global Hawk, is being deployed to airfields in Western China and on Hainan Island. The report also noted a “rocket-powered,” high-speed UAV called the Wuzhen-8.

Unlike previous reports, the latest version did not describe PLAAF and PLAN air-to-air missiles. China’s PL-15, analogous to the American AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), has longer range than the U.S. missile.

Airmen and Guardians are Accelerating AI From the Campus of MIT

Nov. 4, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

Airmen and Guardians working side by side with researchers in the field of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are part of a unique military unit that’s helping to steer some of the research studies while also attempting to guide the Air Force’s and Space Force’s wider adoption of AI.

Under the new research partnership, the Department of the Air Force and university jointly decided on 10 research projects to focus on, a departure from the typical top-down style in which the department advertises grant-funded topics, said Col. Tucker Hamilton, the Air Force’s director of the DAF-MIT AI Accelerator. Started in January 2020, when projects got underway, the accelerator also differs because it doesn’t focus solely on developing a military capability—it also benefits “the public good,” Hamilton said.

In fact, Hamilton doesn’t consider AI to be a capability at all but instead a “tool that enhances all other capabilities.” The work that the accelerator’s 12 Active-duty troops and four Reservists are taking part in is “meant to further the science of AI” in ways to be broadly applied—“not just in some military sense,” he said. “Everything that we decided on with them to pursue had to have a use for a military application as well as a use for a societal application.”

The research projects involve about 140 faculty members, researchers, and students from MIT and the federally funded, national security-focused MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The accelerator’s director on MIT’s side is Daniela Rus, who also directs MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab and served on the Defense Innovation Board advising defense secretaries.

From Hamilton’s perspective, “AI is ubiquitous right now,” he said. “Everything is being influenced by machine learning. So how do we, as a military, approach the technology?”

How it Works

Hamilton was an F-35 test pilot before becoming an MIT fellow with the Air War College, where he learned about the accelerator. Having the qualifications to serve as a program manager, he applied. The Airmen and Guardians assigned to the accelerator report to Hamilton, “so we work together as a military unit,” but they also embed with research projects.

Officers and enlisted members assigned to the accelerator full time come from career fields that complement the projects but also bring some prior understanding of machine learning, Hamilton said. They’re pilots, in part, but also weather, intelligence, and cyberspace operations officers as well as analysts in geospatial intelligence and operations research among others.

“We tried to, first and foremost, find the right people because right now, there are only a handful of people that truly understand this,” Hamilton said.

Three of the four Reservists taking part in the accelerator fulfill a special role. They’re “hugely important for this because,” as CEOs in their civilian lives, “they’re the ones that are actually running AI companies,” Hamilton said. “They have the ability to understand this technology more than most people in the military can understand it.”

The service members each embed with one or two of the research projects, ranging from the likes of AI-assisted autonomy for safe decision-making, optimization of training schedules, and personalized instruction in a foreign language.

“They help actually write some of the code, and they give [the researchers] perspective—like, ‘Well, this is how a pilot would use this type of technology in the field.’ Or, ‘This is what a pilot would be thinking’—or any kind of operator,” Hamilton said. “Our C-17 pilot—he’s working on our project that helps pilot training students.”

For the researchers’ part, “It gives them a vast amount of clarity on their efforts, on their research, on the direction that they’re moving—and also motivates them because they see an [eventual] outcome,” Hamilton said. “They see something that is like a practical application, which excites people.”

AI Ambassador

Space Force Capt. Jazmin Furtado works with the accelerator part-time from across the country at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., looking into how existing AI research relating to space domain awareness could benefit the DOD, “especially the Space Force,” she said.

An Air Force Academy graduate, Furtado went to MIT for her master’s and eventually was assigned to Kessel Run, the Air Force’s software development hub, as a portfolio lead during its early pursuits of AI—where she was one of a handful of people directed to “do AI.”

“It was a very vague statement, but it was a very big goal and vision,” she recalled. “A lot needed to be done in terms of, ‘How are we collecting data?’” That was also when she first connected with the accelerator.

Now on the heels of a fellowship at SpaceX, she’s applying all that experience as a program manager in space command and control architecture for the Space Force’s Space Systems Command. She’s focused on “overseeing these enterprise data stores” and envisions helping to build a digital environment that’s already optimized for AI, which all relies on quality data. “In order for it to be actionable, it has to be accessible,” Furtado said.

Wider Adoption

Alongside helping to “mold” the research projects, the accelerator is also “accelerating the empowerment and implementation of machine learning”—a branch of AI—“throughout the department,” Hamilton said.

The work includes documenting methodologies for the wider adoption of AI—“the frameworks that are going to allow our Airmen and our Guardians to create machine learning solutions for their own organizations,” Hamilton said—as well as providing education courses taught by MIT personnel.

Hamilton believes that in the long run, AI will be best at “teaming with humans.”

“Maybe it is in a situation where you have a pilot flying, and they are being fed pieces of information that the computer is seeing that the human couldn’t decipher that helps them and enhances their performance,” he said.

In hopes of guiding acquisition organizations in their use of AI, for example, a group of Air Force and Space Force acquisition program managers are assigned as fellows to the accelerator for four months—dubbed “Phantoms”—and developing the first toolkit-style document describing, “This is how you need to think about machine learning when you acquire it, when you contract for it,” Hamilton said. “How should you think about this technology when you’re diving into it—when you’re trying to hire industry partners to solve a problem you have using machine learning? What are the things you should be thinking?”

Courses have ranged from a senior leaders’ course for general officers; to leaders’ courses for the likes of squadron commanders and civilian government executives; to a coders’ course “that’s very intense … for a select few,” Hamilton said. “We’re trying to teach people organic ability to code and to create machine learning algorithms and go through data.”

Thanks to such a close partnership with “a world-class academic institution,” Hamilton said, “We’re making advancements revolutionary to the entire field—the entire world.”

DOD Invites Companies to Help It Visualize the Space Domain

Nov. 3, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Force wants to better visualize the space domain, so the Defense Innovation Unit is asking companies—both from the U.S. and internationally—to send in ideas for a shot at funding.

Having teased the Global Space Innovation Project on social media, officials with the DIU previewed the project via video conference Nov. 3. It’s a solicitation for technology that’s already in existence or in development that could take the types of data collected for space operations and turn it all into something user-friendly—like an app—to visualize the domain and the status of space systems.

“We’re looking for things that are already somewhat developed that we can take that next mile and really customize to our needs,” said Matt Tompkins, a co-founder of SpaceWERX, which stood up in August and collaborates with DIU.

In the public video conference, the officials said they have experience funding international companies following 2020’s joint U.S.-U.K. International Space Pitch Day.

They said multiple awards could be made and there is no prerequisite for a company to apply. They declined to state a dollar amount for the total project or an upper limit for individual awards but acknowledged they are modeling the program off of Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2 grants. Those are generally $750,000 for two years. International companies wouldn’t be eligible for SBIR grants, though they are still eligible to receive funding.

The Space Force’s Space Systems Command and the Space Force’s Space Rapid Capabilities Office are funding the project, while the DIU is taking care of the contracting side.

An announcement with more details, including answers to frequently asked questions, goes up on the DIU’s website Nov. 4—but the officials said it will be intentionally broad and doesn’t even specify whether a single solution or a suite of apps is preferred:

“Tell us why you think one solution is better than the other,” Tompkins said.

Submissions will be accepted Nov. 4-18. Companies may team up to apply.

‘Confirmation Bias’ Cited in Erroneous Strike That Killed 10 Civilians in Afghanistan

Nov. 3, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Three days after 13 Americans were killed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, a U.S. Central Command strike cell in Qatar made a series of assumptions over the course of eight hours based on the intelligence available at the time, leading to the death of 10 innocent civilians, including seven children, according to the final report by the Air Force inspector general.

Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said interviewed 29 individuals, including 22 directly involved in the operation, as part of a 45-day investigation directed by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and ordered by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall before briefing senior defense officials.

“Individuals involved in this strike that were interviewed during this investigation, truly believed at the time that they were targeting an imminent threat to U.S. forces on HKIA,” Said said.

He told defense reporters Nov. 3 the strike cell made a “reasonable” conclusion that the white Toyota Corolla driven by aid worker Zemari Ahmadi was a vehicle of interest, based on “intelligence available that correlated the Corolla to particular locations.”

Said attempted to paint a picture of a self-defense strike made during a vulnerable time when 13 service members had just been killed. Ground intelligence was not available and there were many known terrorist threats as the Aug. 31 evacuation deadline neared.

“You have to realize that strike cell was dealing with multiple threat streams tracking multiple vehicles at any given time,” he said.

The inspector general said confirmation bias then crept in, making analysts believe Ahmadi was acting suspiciously. A stop at a suspected ISIS location and handover of a computer bag was one example, since a computer bag was used in the Aug. 26 HKIA attack.

“So, the fact that on that day, on the 29th we’re watching this white Corolla, we saw an exchange of a computer bag. It wasn’t lost on people,” he said.

Despite the execution errors combined with confirmation bias that led to the “regrettable strike” and civilian casualties, Said said the investigation “found no violation of law.”

“What likely broke down was not the intelligence, but the correlation of that intelligence to a specific house, the inference that what the intelligence is talking about is that house and that car,” he added. “There’s an art to that, and that’s where the disconnect and correlation broke down.”

Communication breakdowns also took place between the support team operating the platforms and the strike cell. The support teams could only provide additional context to the strike cell through a secure chat function.

In all, Said described three recommendations listed in the classified report:

A procedure to mitigate confirmation bias.
Better information sharing across the strike cell and to supporting elements.
A better assessment of the presence of civilians.

Removed from the pressure of the moment, Said also said a careful study of video footage two minutes before the strike was launched reveals physical evidence that a child was at the compound. Ultimately, seven children were killed in the strike, along with three Afghan men.

The Inspector General noted that the recommendations would only apply to time-limited, defensive strikes in urban settings, like the erroneous Aug. 29 strike, rather than a “typical” over-the-horizon, counterterrorism strike, which gathers information over days.

Assignment of accountability may still come through the chain of command, which has had the report for two days. Possible repercussions may include de-credentialing, firing, or re-training individuals involved.

China’s Nuclear Development Outstrips Predictions; 1,000 Warheads by 2030

Nov. 3, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

China is building new nuclear weapons much faster than previously predicted, already has a “nascent nuclear triad,” and will field more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon’s 2021 report on China’s military power, released Nov. 3.

According to a Pentagon briefing paper highlighting changes from the 2020 edition of the report, “the accelerating pace of the [People’s Republic of China’s] nuclear expansion may enable [it] to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, … [and] at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size” that the Defense Department previously projected. China is also shifting to a “launch on warning” posture for its nuclear weapons.

In its last report, the Pentagon said China had 200 nuclear warheads and was expected to double that number by the end of the decade, indicating nearly a trebling of its deployment pace in the coming years. Moreover, the new document only captures developments up to December 2020, and its 2021 release was about two months late, the Pentagon said. The pace may have accelerated even further since.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, speaking at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, foreshadowed the report, saying that, in his view, China is “developing a first-strike capability.”

The Pentagon was not as alarming, saying China’s plan for now is to develop a “credible second-strike” capacity with nuclear weapons, meaning enough could survive a first strike by the U.S. to retaliate with “multiple rounds of counterstrike, deterring an adversary with the threat of unacceptable damage.”

Even at 1,000 nuclear weapons, though, China will not have achieved parity with the U.S. in terms of warheads, according to a senior defense official who briefed reporters ahead of the report’s release.

According to a State Department disclosure in early October, the U.S. has 3,750 nuclear warheads, down from 3,805 a year earlier and 3,822 in 2018. The U.S. inventory has declined due to the decay of the warheads’ plutonium cores and a replacement pace that doesn’t keep up with retirements.

The Pentagon said the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces are developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles that will “significantly improve” their overall force, and they will be equipped with multiple independently targeted warheads, necessitating an increase in warhead production.

China is expanding its “capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing faster breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities,” the report said.

The PLARF “has commenced building at least three new solid-fueled ICBM silo fields, which will cumulatively contain hundreds of new ICBM silos,” the report noted. Concurrently, China is expanding its inventory of road-mobile DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which can strike ground or maritime targets, and in 2020, fielded “its first hypersonic weapons system, the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle-capable medium-range ballistic missile.”

In August, China tested a globe-circling hypersonic weapon, which may have been the DF-17.

China has also built up its H-8 bomber force, adding a “nuclear air-launched ballistic missile,” effectively establishing China’s own version of a triad, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The PRC also plans to “increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force,” the paper said.

There “clearly has been a change” in China’s approach to nuclear weapons, the defense official said. Besides diversifying its nuclear arsenal, China is also expanding the underlying infrastructure needed to make warheads and connect its weapons with a command and control network, he said.

“The nuclear expansion the PRC is undertaking is certainly very concerning to us,” the official asserted. It “raises some questions … They haven’t really explained why they’re doing it, [and] … we’d like to have more insight into their intentions.”

Compared to China’s historic stockpiles, “they’re moving in a direction that substantially exceeds where they’ve been before in numbers and capabilities,” the official said. This “reinforces the importance of pursuing some practical measures for risk reduction.” While China has a “no first use” of nuclear weapons policy, it is “suggesting in some of their professional military writings that maybe that wouldn’t apply” in all circumstances, the official said. Given that, and the shift to a launch-on-warning posture, “That just makes it more important that responsible powers that seek those capabilities … need to have discussions with each other,” he said.

The official declined to say more because the Nuclear Posture Review is ongoing, and the issue of China’s growing nuclear force will be dealt with in the resulting document.

The U.S. has urged China in recent years to participate in joint strategic arms talks with the U.S. and Russia, but China has declined, saying it is not interested. China is signatory to no nuclear arms agreements or protocols.

The report said China fields about 100 ICBMs in different basing modes, including roll-out and road-mobile missiles. It “appears to be doubling the numbers of launchers in some ICBM units.” The PLA is developing a “DF-5C and may be developing a DF-32 ICBM.”

China’s nuclear missile submarine fleet includes six boats, each of which can carry 12 CSS-N-14 (JL-2) sea-launched ballistic missiles. The next generation of SSBN submarine likely goes into production “in the early 2020s.” The new model will likely also have upgraded missiles.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Forces have operationally fielded the H-6N bomber—a derivative of Russia’s Tu-16 Badger bomber—“providing a platform for the air component” of China’s nascent triad. The H-6N force is developing tactics and the aircraft is equipped with an air-refueling probe. It also has a recessed space in the fuselage likely meant “for external carriage of an ALBM believed to be nuclear capable.”

The H-6N can carry six land-attack cruise missiles with a range allowing it to hit targets “in the second island chain” from airfields in the mainland. The H-6K is being equipped with YJ-12 anti-ship cruise missiles to hit targets in the same range, “significantly extending” the Chinese Navy’s reach.

The PLAAF “is also developing new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets,” the report said. While this was publicly announced in 2016, “it may take more than a decade to develop this type of advanced bomber,” the Pentagon said.

800 Airmen and Guardians Refuse COVID Vaccine by Deadline; 10,000 Remain Unvaccinated

Nov. 3, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Air Force released its first snapshot of COVID-19 vaccination compliance Nov. 3, the day after the Active-duty deadline, with some 800 uniformed personnel refusing the shot and nearly 5,000 Airmen and Guardians waiting to find out if their religious exemptions will be approved. In all, 10,352 Airmen and Guardians, including 1,866 who have received medical or administrative exemptions, remain unvaccinated out of a total Active-duty force of approximately 326,000.

“With nearly 97 percent of Active duty Airmen and Guardians having received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the Air and Space Forces remain ready to protect the nation,” Department of the Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said in a statement.

“This is a readiness issue,” she added. “Our Airmen and Guardians must be able to respond to situations around the globe and being vaccinated is one of the ways the Department of the Air Force bolsters our readiness and safely meets the readiness requirements that our national security depends on.”

Of the 97 percent of the Active-duty force that has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 95.9 percent are fully vaccinated and 1 percent are partially vaccinated.

That puts the Air Force behind the Navy, which was 99 percent vaccinated as of Nov. 1. As of that date, 93 percent of Active-duty Marines and 90 percent of Active-duty Soldiers were vaccinated, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby.

Kirby said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was pleased with the service’s effort to fulfill the vaccine mandate.

“He’s comfortable and pleased with the leadership that the military departments are showing here,” Kirby said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine. “He’s not unmindful of the fact that in each of the military departments, there are some members who are declining and refusing to take the vaccine, some that are applying for exemptions.”

A former senior Air Force official called the Air Force’s efforts a success. “I mean, if you have 800 people who are categorized as outright refusing to take it out of 337,000 Active duty, … that’s a pretty good success rate.”

The former official said leadership messaging about the medical necessity and readiness was on point.

“I don’t think that COVID-19 rationale is any different than the rationale for any of the others,” he said of the estimated 17 other vaccinations required of Airmen and Guardians.

Breaking Down the Unvaccinated

Among those who remain unvaccinated, 1,634 have received medical exemptions; 232 have received administrative exemptions, such as separation or retirement; and 4,933 are pending a decision related to a request for religious exemption.

Another 2,753 unvaccinated individuals are categorized as “not started.” The Air Force said some of those individuals are deployed to overseas locations where vaccines are not readily available.

“It’s not a large number, if you look at the total force,” Air Force spokesperson Rose Riley told Air Force Magazine. “Not started could include several different categories. It’s those individuals who have not refused, verbally or in writing, who have not initiated a request for an exemption or religious accommodation, and in some cases, these individuals don’t have access to the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine.”

DAF Total Vaccinated

	Active Duty	AD/Guard/Reserve
% Partially Vaccinated	1 percent	3.7 percent
% Fully Vaccinated	95.9 percent	90.5 percent
Number Unvaccinated	8,486	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
—Number Not Started	2,753	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
—Number Refused	800	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
—Number Religious in Progress	4,933	Pending Dec. 2 deadline

Source: U.S. Air Force

DAF Approved Exemptions

Medical	1,634	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
Administrative	232	Pending Dec. 2 deadline
Religious Accomodation	0	Pending Dec. 2 deadline

Source: U.S. Air Force

Former Trump administration Veterans Affairs Secretary and Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Robert Wilkie was unsatisfied with the Air Force’s vaccination effort.

“It’s been incumbent upon the leadership to make this a medical and a readiness issue, and instead, they’ve allowed it to fester, and it’s become a political football,” he told Air Force Magazine, laying blame on the White House.

Wilkie said with so much information available to modern Airmen, leaders need to do a better job of explaining.

“There are more nuances in the military today than there ever have been,” he said, describing a blurred line between the civilian and military worlds. “A lot of people in uniform unfortunately seem to think that they’re one and the same, and they’re not. Two very different worlds. Two very different ethics, and two very different sets of responsibilities.”

Wilkie served more than 20 years in the military, including in the Air Force Reserve.

“I was on Active duty for the first four months of this year. I thought the messages were inchoate. I thought that there was no follow through at the lower echelons,” he said. “One-off messages on a video is not enough. This needs to be down to the squad and file level.”

For months, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Air Force leaders including Secretary Frank Kendall, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond recorded video messages and used social media to encourage Airmen and Guardians to educate themselves and get vaccinated.

The Air Force could not provide a breakdown of how many Active-duty personnel have been disciplined, their location, specialty, or career field. No breakdown was available of vaccinated Airmen and Guardians, either.

Riley said disciplinary action for disobeying a lawful order would be taken in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice at the commander level using an escalatory approach.

“I am not tracking any discharges of individuals prior to our deadline,” she said, while noting that nearly 40 basic military and technical trainees were recently kicked out for refusing to take the vaccine.

“There’s an escalation process,” she explained of the Active-duty disciplinary approach. “They don’t just jump to discharge. The commander has to work through those other disciplinary actions afforded to them.”

The former senior Air Force official said there’s been enough education and explanation to those who still refuse the vaccination.

“I think they’ve been given every opportunity and explained the consequences. So, it does come down to a matter of good order and discipline,” he said. “Eight hundred is a pretty small number. I mean, when they assess upwards of 35,000-40,000 new Airmen every year, and about that many separate or retire. That’s a pretty small number that I think could be easily mitigated.”

Members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have until Dec. 2 to become fully vaccinated, the department previously announced.

Reports: Erdogan Relays Pledge by Biden to Help With F-16 Sale

Nov. 2, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told journalists on his return home from the G20 summit in Rome on Oct. 31 that President Joe Biden had told Erdogan that Biden would do “his best” to help usher through a $6 billion sale of F-16 fighters and modernization kits, according to reports.

A much-anticipated meeting between Biden and Erdogan comes after months of tension regarding Turkey’s possession and use of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. Speculation remains that Turkey will turn to further Russian military sales, to include fighter planes, after the NATO ally was officially kicked out of the F-35 program in September over concerns the S-400 would be used to study vulnerabilities in the fifth-generation fighter.

A State Department spokesperson declined to comment further Nov. 2, referring questions to the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

The biggest variable in the F-16 acquisition, Erdogan reportedly indicated, is the U.S. Congress. He said Biden estimated only a “50-50” chance the military sale would be approved by lawmakers, who are still irked by the S-400 purchase as well as alleged human rights violations and democratic shortcomings. Reports said the Turkish president wants a credit of $1.4 billion from the canceled purchase of six F-35s, but the State Department says the DOD removal and State Department sale are separate processes.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said Nov. 1 that the Defense Department remains in contact with its Turkish counterparts about the F-35 program removal and that the officials held a joint meeting in Ankara on Oct. 27.

“Turkey was removed from the F-35 program back in July of 2019, following their acceptance of the S-400 air and missile defense system,” Kirby said. “The Department of Defense remains in consultation with Turkey to address remaining issues resulting from their removal from the program.”

Kirby declined to speculate on the potential military sale. A follow-up meeting with DOD and Turkish defense officials is expected in Washington, D.C.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III also spoke by phone with Turkish Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar on Oct. 27, according to a Pentagon statement.

“The Secretary reaffirmed the United States’ recognition of Turkey’s military modernization needs,” Kirby said in the statement. “He also thanked Turkey for hosting a DoD team in Ankara this week to begin dispute resolution discussions to address outstanding issues resulting from Turkey’s removal from the F-35 program.”

Despite recent months of rhetoric and posturing from Turkish officials and Erdogan himself, the Turkish president indicated the meeting with Biden was held “in a very positive atmosphere.”

Intel Agencies: COVID-19 Not a Biological Weapon, Likely Not Engineered

Nov. 2, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The COVID-19 disease isn’t a biological weapon and probably wasn’t genetically engineered, and Chinese officials likely didn’t know about it before the first outbreak in Wuhan, China, in November 2019, according to a new report from Avril Haines, U.S. director of national intelligence.

But the Intelligence Community has reached no consensus on the specific origin of COVID-19, assessing that it could have started with an infected animal or a lab mishap, and the agencies say China isn’t being helpful in nailing down a definitive answer.

The findings are part of an “updated assessment” of COVID-19’s origins that Haines’ office released Nov. 2.

The virus that causes COVID-19—SARS-CoV-2—lacks “genetic signatures … that would be diagnostic of genetic engineering,” the report said, and no existing coronavirus strain has been found that “could have plausibly served as a backbone” if it had been engineered. Moreover SARS-CoV-2 naturally recombines and mutates, suggesting that the pandemic variant isn’t artificially contrived. Nevertheless, analysts don’t have higher confidence that it’s not an artificial strain because “some genetic engineering techniques can make modifications difficult to identify, and we have gaps in our knowledge of naturally-occurring coronaviruses.”

The IC “remains divided on the most likely origin” of the pandemic, according to the report, narrowing it down to “natural exposure”—most likely in one of China’s “wet markets,” which deal in bush meat and unconventional foods—and “a laboratory-associated accident.”

The IC can’t provide a “definitive explanation” for the origin of COVID-19 without more information, it said. Specifically, it lacks “clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest COVID-19 cases.”

More information could produce a conclusive answer, but China “continues to hinder the global investigation,” resists sharing information, “and [blames] other countries, including the United States,” the report said. The IC says these behaviors indicate the Chinese government’s uncertainty “about where an investigation could lead” and its frustration that “the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China.”

There are “numerous information gaps, particularly related to technical data,” from China, the report said. China will have to offer “greater transparency and collaboration” in order to “close information gaps on the origins of COVID-19.” The IC called on Beijing to reveal more about its coronavirus research that might confirm “a laboratory-associated incident or at least some new insights.”

The IC also noted that China has been uncooperative in allowing World Health Organization investigators access to research sites and claimed that WHO investigations were “politicized” and that Beijing would not cooperate with future site visits because it alleged the WHO was engaging in “conspiracy theory,” according to the report.

China is also “pushing its narrative that the virus originated outside China,” suggesting it came from imported frozen food, which the IC called “an extremely unlikely theory.” China has also charged—”to divert attention away from Beijing,” according to the report—that the U.S. intentionally spread SARS-CoV-2.

The IC said it believes the “first cluster” of cases arose in Wuhan in late 2019, “but we lack insight—and may never have it—on where the first SARS-CoV-2 infection occurred.” In its one nod to China’s theory, the IC said, “it is plausible that a traveler came in contact with the virus elsewhere and then went to Wuhan,” but so far, there’s no “credible evidence” of an outbreak anywhere prior to the first reported cases in late 2019.

Twelve coronaviruses from 77 percent to 96 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2 have been identified since 2013; one each in Cambodia, Japan, and Thailand, and the rest in China. Ten came from bats, and two came from pangolins. Of the 12, all are at least 77 percent similar to COVID-19, with four being more than 94 percent similar. Even so, “an immediate precursor virus strain and animal reservoir have not been identified.”

The natural exposure hypothesis, to which four segments of the IC subscribe “with low confidence,” is supported by China’s “lack of foreknowledge, the numerous vectors for natural exposure, and other factors,” Haines’ report said. China’s wet markets sell “live mammals and dozens of species—including raccoon dogs, masked palm civets, and a variety of other mammals, birds, and reptiles—often in poor conditions where viruses can jump among species, facilitating … novel mutations.” Hubei province, where COVID-19 seems to have started, “has extensive farming and breeding of animals that are susceptible” to SARS-like illnesses, “including minks and raccoon dogs.” China’s regulation of wet markets is “lax,” and conditions in them “increase the probability” that transmission occurred this way.

One segment of the IC assesses with “moderate confidence” that a Chinese scientist caught the disease while working with SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor. The exposure could have come from contact with a lab animal or leakage, and the proponents of this answer “give weight to the inherently risky nature of work on coronaviruses.”

Three other IC segments were “unable to coalesce” around a single explanation without more information.

“Variations in analytic views largely stem from differences in how agencies weigh intelligence reporting and scientific publications and intelligence and scientific gaps,” the report said.

The report said the IC conducted a 90-day study of the issue, during which the DNI encouraged them to “emphasize points of agreement” and “solidify consensus.”

DOD to Brief Congress on China’s Military Progress

Nov. 2, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Defense Department officials will visit Capitol Hill on Nov. 3 to brief staffers on the department’s annual report on the Chinese military amid heightened concerns about China’s military buildup, a DOD spokesperson confirmed.

The report, “2021 Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China”, commonly called the “China Military Power Report,” comes amid technological developments by the Chinese military that reportedly surprised members of the U.S. intelligence community, plus the apparently rapid growth of the Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile program and aggressive moves toward Taiwan.

Since the last report was released in August 2020, China’s aim to achieve a world-class military by 2050 and challenge the United States has evidently marched on with continued growth, testing, and modernization efforts. That now includes asymmetric capabilities, as the Financial Times revealed in a recent report that China tested a nuclear-capable orbital hypersonic weapon in August.

While the Pentagon declined again Nov. 1 to comment on the orbital test, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley acknowledged the test in an interview with Bloomberg TV and said China’s developments were “very concerning.”

Meanwhile, since October, 150 aircraft from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force have entered the Taiwanese air defense identification zone. China watchers have pondered whether the show of force is a mere exercise or practice for an invasion.

In July, private research groups studying satellite imagery noticed that China had built more than 100 new ICBM silos in its western desert.

The release in September of the book “Peril” by reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa revealed conversations between Milley and his Chinese counterpart during the final months of the Trump administration, an apparent effort to de-escalate tensions at a time the Chinese reportedly thought conflict could be imminent.

Milley was harshly criticized for reportedly saying he would notify the Chinese in advance of an attack, but he defended the calls as typical of his position.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has labeled China America’s “pacing challenge” and personally chairs high-level biweekly meetings on China’s military.

While this year’s report was concluded in December 2020, news of more recent developments including China’s nuclear buildup, hypersonic development, and aggression against Taiwan are well known. The closed-door briefing will not be televised, but officials may be asked to explain how DOD’s thinking has evolved with the latest developments.

The Pentagon will release the report midday Nov. 3 following the Hill briefing.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 6:45 p.m. Nov. 2 to reflect that unnamed Defense Department officials will visit Capitol Hill.