Austin Visits Romania Ahead of NATO Summit, Hints at Future Black Sea Deployments

Oct. 21, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Walking the flight line occupied by Blackhawk attack helicopters and American troops on rotation at the “MK” air base in Romania, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III highlighted the strategic value of one of NATO’s newest members Oct. 20 ahead of NATO defense ministerial meetings in Brussels Oct. 21-22.

“Romania is one of a handful of NATO allies that hosts a significant number of U.S. rotational forces,” Austin said after meeting Romanian Defense Minister Nicolae Ciuca.

“Security and stability of the Black Sea are in the U.S. national interest and are critical to the security of NATO’s Eastern Flank,” he added. “Russia’s destabilizing activities in and around the Black Sea reflect its ambitions to regain a dominant position in the region and to prevent the realization of a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace.”

Romanian security analyst Iulian Chifu told Air Force Magazine that Russia uses information warfare, electronic warfare, and the militarization of Crimea to threaten NATO’s Black Sea allies and partners. Russia also regularly buzzes, or flies low, over NATO commercial and military vessels in the Black Sea.

“We all understand it’s a matter of projection of force,” Chifu said of the growing Russian aggression.

“The problem is Crimea—which according to Russia is part of Russia, and they need to enforce that at some levels that are far overpassing the capacity even to attack anytime Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey,” he said, naming the three NATO Black Sea partners.

Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base near the Black Sea coast, known as “MK,” has received millions of dollars in European Deterrence Initiative investment and hosts several hundred American troops on continuous nine-month rotations. The air base is at the southeastern edge of NATO, just a few hundred miles from Russian-occupied Crimea.

In public comments, Austin said Romania plays a “key role” in U.S. freedom of access to the Black Sea.

The Romanian Defense Department has slated $135 million for investments at MK and training facilities at the nearby Capu Midia training area. MK has already been used as a waypoint for American deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, where 27 Romanian troops died in combat over the 20-year conflict.

In part, Romania’s investments have been made to lure additional American troops, which act as a deterrent to Russia.

But Austin was coy about committing more American Soldiers and Airmen to Romania when asked by a journalist if the investments would lead to additional troops.

“Our posture in the region continues to present a credible threat against Russia and it enables NATO forces to operate more effectively should deterrence fail,” he said, citing the ongoing force posture review. “No announcements to make today.”

In June, Romania hosted several hundred American troops as part of the Defender-Europe exercises, including missile defense exercises at Capu Midia. Romania’s 2 percent GDP spending on defense has helped the former communist dictatorship and Soviet ally emerge from behind the Iron Curtain and modernize its defense equipment with NATO interoperable hardware and American technology.

Romania hosts Phase 2 of NATO’s Ballistic Missile Defense system in Deveselu with the only operational Aegis Ashore system, active since 2016. Phase 3 will include an Aegis Ashore system in Redzikowo, Poland. Phase 1 of the missile defense program uses regional American naval assets with Aegis missile defense systems.

Preparing for the NATO Summit

Austin joined NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and defense ministers from the alliance Oct. 21 for two days of meetings that begin NATO’s strategic shift in the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

While the American Defense Secretary was not scheduled to make public remarks until the meetings’ conclusion, Stoltenberg previewed the topics of discussion in a press conference Oct. 20, with a focus on NATO’s turn to technology.

“Future conflicts will be fought not just with bullets and bombs, but also with bytes and big data,” he said. “We see authoritarian regimes racing to develop new technologies, from artificial intelligence to autonomous systems.”

Stoltenberg said this week allies will kick off a $1.16 billion NATO Innovation Fund to develop dual-use emerging and disruptive technologies. NATO will also establish its first artificial intelligence strategy to incorporate data analysis, imagery, and cyber defense.

Stoltenberg also touched on historically low relations with Russia, which closed its mission to NATO this week and the NATO offices in Moscow following the expulsion of eight Russian intelligence officers from Brussels.

He also addressed the threat posed by Russia’s development of nuclear-capable and hypersonic missiles.

“These missiles pose a real threat to security in the Euro-Atlantic area,” he said. “We will not mirror Russia’s actions, but we will maintain strong deterrence and defense.”

In comments from Bucharest the same day, Austin predicted Afghanistan would be a topic of discussion.

“As you would imagine, no doubt, we will talk about NATO’s role post-Afghanistan and some of the lessons learned from Afghanistan,” Austin said.

Stoltenberg promised a “thorough and clear-eyed assessment” of the alliance’s 20-year involvement in the country, which began as a narrow counterterrorism mission and expanded to an “ambitious nation building effort.” Included will be an assessment of the risks of engaging in “big missions and operations outside NATO territory.”

Stoltenberg also expressed confidence that American commitment to NATO had returned after reluctance during the Trump era.

“What we see now is the U.S. administration which is strongly committed to rebuilding, strengthening alliances. And in particular strengthening the trans-Atlantic bond between Europe and North America,” he said.

Asked if NATO at its June 2022 summit in Madrid would give a strong signal to aspiring members, such as Georgia and Ukraine, where Austin visited prior to arriving in Brussels, Stoltenberg demurred.

“We will continue to work on how we can further strengthen the partnership with Georgia, how we can make sure that we both provide political and practical support,” he said.

Climate Change Likely to Lead to Instability, Increased Risks For Pentagon, Report Says

Oct. 21, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Nearly nine months after President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to incorporate the implications of climate change in its wargaming, analysis, and simulations, the Defense Department has released its Climate Risk Analysis report.

The report, out Oct. 21, “provides a starting point for a shared understanding of the mission risks of climate change—and lays out a path forward,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III wrote in its preface.

It also comes two weeks after the DOD released its Climate Adaptation Plan, intended to guide decision-making as the department deals with the effects of climate change.

By contrast, the Climate Risk Analysis is primarily focused on identifying the different ways that a changing climate will likely challenge national security—both Biden and Austin have cited climate change as a major national security issue.

With higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and more frequent, violent weather events, both first- and second-order effects are likely, the report noted.

“For example, the climate hazard of changing precipitation patterns is expected to cause more frequent and intense droughts in certain regions of the world. Primary impacts of drought include reduced water availability. Secondary impacts include reduced agricultural yields, which, in certain situations, could contribute to migration,” the report reads.

On top of those risks, “malign actors” could try to exploit instability caused by climate change for their own gain, the report added. Both internal and external tensions within certain countries could also be increased if there is competition for a scarcity of resources, leading to more security risks.

In the Indo-Pacific region in particular, key U.S. military installations are on islands that could be threatened by rising sea levels, and adversaries such as China could use the impacts to expand their influence.

While the report notes that “specific hazards, impacts, and risks associated with climate change will differ by region,” its sections on specific regions were deemed “Controlled Unclassified Information” and not included in the publicly released version.

The report does include a map showing the specific impacts of climate change and the resulting potential security implications by region. For U.S. Southern, European, and Africa Commands, the two main implications cited are increased requests for humanitarian aid and disaster relief and increased instability within and between countries.

For Central Command, the biggest potential risks will be increased instability and altered or limited environments for military operations. For Indo-Pacific Command, the potential security implications include disaster relief, limited environments for military operations, and increased demand for DOD support of civil authorities. The latter two are listed as implications for Northern Command, along with an added risk of increased need for transportation, communication, and monitoring in harsh environments such as the Arctic.

Department of Defense Climate Risk Analysis

“To keep the nation secure, we must tackle the existential threat of climate change. The unprecedented scale of wildfires, floods, droughts, typhoons, and other extreme weather events of recent months and years have damaged our installations and bases, constrained force readiness and operations, and contributed to instability around the world,” Austin wrote. “Climate change touches most of what this department does, and this threat will continue to have worsening implications for U.S. national security.”

The Pentagon’s report was one of four addressing climate change released by national security agencies Oct. 21—the Intelligence Community released a national intelligence issue on the topic predicting rising tensions and instability among nations as well—while the Department of Homeland Security released a Strategic Framework for Addressing Climate Change as well as a report on how the issue will affect migration.

Air Force Asks Boeing for E-7A Wedgetail Data for E-3 Sentry Replacement

Oct. 21, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force has taken the first step toward a rapid acquisition of Boeing’s E-7A Wedgetail airborne warning and control aircraft to replace the aging E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, according to an Oct. 20 business opportunity announcement.

The Air Force announced it’s seeking information from Boeing to perform “studies, analyses, and activities required to ascertain the current E-7A baseline configuration and determine what additional work would be necessary” to make the aircraft compatible with Air Force “configuration standards and mandates.” It didn’t specify when it would be seeking the new airplane.

Senior Air Force leaders, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference in September, said they were looking favorably at replacing the E-3 with the Wedgetail, given its lower operating cost and non-developmental status. Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark D. Kelly told reporters that to maintain “707-based” aircraft such as the E-3 is no longer feasible. Kelly said he anticipated no significant issues making the E-7 compatible with USAF needs, especially since it was designed and developed in the U.S.

The Air Force, alone among its allies, does not “field a cutting-edge, air-moving-target-indicator capability,” Kelly lamented. Commenting on the AWACS’ age and maintenance issues, he said, “There’s a reason why exactly zero airlines around the globe fly the 707. Because it takes a miracle … every day just to get it up in the air.”

The Air Force has operated the E-3 AWACS since 1977, and since then, NATO, the U.K., France, and Saudi Arabia have acquired their own examples. Japan operates a similar system hosted aboard the 767 airframe. The last E-3 was built in 1992. The aircraft is used to provide long-range detection, tracking, and identification of airborne threats, as well as command and control of friendly fighters, vectoring them toward intercepts of hostile aircraft.

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., speaking at ASC21, said the E-7 provides “an option to be able to get the capability much faster than if we were to start a new one from scratch.” He called the E-7 “a good platform” that he flew, or flew aboard, twice during his time as commander of Pacific Air Forces. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the E-7 “could be useful” to shore up the AWACS mission.

The Wedgetail, which uses a fixed blade-like antenna on a 737 airframe—rather than a rotating radome like on the 707-based E-3 Sentry—was developed for the Royal Australian Air Force starting in 1999 and has operated with that service since 2009. It has also been selected by the U.K., Korea, and Turkey to equip their air services, offering interoperability advantages.

Gen. Kenneth S. Wislbach, current PACAF commander, noted that the Wedgetail is “a proven capability” and that he’s been impressed with its performance.

Brown suggested that funding for the E-7 could show up in the fiscal 2023 budget; the Air Force did not release out-year budget plans with its 2022 budget, now before Congress. The Air Force has used new rapid acquisition authorities given by Congress in the last few years to jump-start various prototyping efforts, as well as the F-15EX procurement.

The government wants to evaluate information regarding “diminishing manufacturing sources,” systems engineering, cybersecurity, airworthiness, test data, “spectrum allocation” and “future impacts of Federal Communications Commission forecasted sales of spectrums,” open mission systems, and M-code GPS. It designated Boeing as the only potential supplier of the system.

“The Aircraft Rapid Prototyping Requirements Document [RPRD] has specifically called out the E-7A and it has been determined that this is a sole-source requirement,” the government said.

The Air Force had planned to replace the E-3 with a “distributed” system, similar to what it is pursuing with the Advanced Battle Management System replacing the E-8 Joint STARS, but it has not said anything along those lines since it completed the Sentry Block 40/45 upgrade in 2020. Brown, however, said at AFA’s conference that the ultimate goal is to have a capability “that can be defensible” and suggested that a space-based system could be a solution.

None of the USAF leaders who addressed the E-7 said anything about how many the Air Force might buy, but the service fields 31 E-3 AWACS.

Kelly said a derivative of the Navy’s E-2D Hawkeye, which is a turboprop-powered aircraft with a rotating radome like that on the E-3 AWACS, would not match USAF’s needs.

There is some urgency to getting a Wedgetail acquisition underway, as Boeing is eyeing an end to 737 Next-Generation—on which the E-7 is based—in the 2025 timeframe, hence the “diminishing manufacturing sources” information request. The Wedgetail has much in common with the Navy’s P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, also in use by several other countries. Boeing pitched a P-8/737-based JSTARS replacement in 2015, but the Air Force dropped that effort in favor of the ABMS.

Pentagon’s Push to Build Up Technology Talent ‘Insufficient,’ DIU Boss Says

Oct. 21, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon’s current efforts to add science and technology talent to its workforce are “insufficient,” especially as the U.S. seeks to counter China’s gains in the field, the director of the Defense Innovation Unit said Oct. 21.

Speaking during a virtual panel organized by the Center for a New American Security, Michael Brown said the Defense Department has a number of programs that bring in the people necessary to bolster its tech efforts, such as the Technology and National Security Fellowship and the Defense Digital Service. But those success stories “are too small relative to what we need for the challenge going forward,” Brown cautioned.

In particular, Brown said, the DOD has a tendency to staff key technology efforts with military officers who may not know the topic as well as civilian experts. At the DIU, which focuses on taking commercial technology and applying it in the military at speed, the goal is “to combine both the military officers that … we really select one by one, along with commercial technology executives,” Brown said. It’s a model he wants the department to follow in other key areas.

“We need to have more blended workforces in the areas of DOD that require that,” Brown said.

Brown is not the first to fault the Pentagon for placing officers in charge of technology programs despite having little expertise in the area. Nicolas M. Chaillan, who served as the Air Force’s first chief software officer, quit the service in dramatic fashion in September with a LinkedIn post that raised the same issue.

“Please stop putting a major or [lieutenant colonel] (despite their devotion, exceptional attitude, and culture) in charge” of technical projects affecting millions of users “when they have no previous experience in that field,” he wrote. “We would not put a pilot in the cockpit without extensive flight training; why would we expect someone with no IT experience to be close to successful?”

Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Darlene Costello later told reporters the department was considering Chaillan’s critique in how it assigned senior military officers to advanced technology acquisition programs.

As for bringing in more civilians for a “blended” workforce, the Air Force and the broader DOD have to do a better job of recruiting, developing, and retaining talent, argued panelist Loren DeJonge Schulman, vice president of research and evaluation for the Partnership for Public Service.

Too often, DeJonge Schulman argued, government organizations’ solution to the talent gap is to create short-term fellowships or rotations whereby private-sector experts work in public service for a year or two, then leave. Such a concept was championed by former Air Force acquisition boss Will Roper in a recent Politico defense forum, where he advocated for “limited tours of duty” where “[innovators] could solve significant challenges and then easily go back to the private sector where their skills are refreshed.”

The problem with this approach, DeJonge Schulman said, is that it does not develop “sustainable talent models that we can imbue understanding of technology, technology acumen … so that you can actually build policy around them, but not inculcating those into the federal workforce.”

Instead, the Defense Department in particular needs to do a better job of professional development and education for its civilian workforce—while the professional development available to uniformed service members is “very good,” DeJonge Schulman said, it is “atrocious” for civil servants.

“[We need to be] thinking through, how do we invest in civil servants’ professional development, utilize those investments in order to bring them into roles that make sense for them, and then give them challenges and opportunities that meet the need in terms of, if you’ve created this incredible talent, if you’re not actually getting the opportunities to actually succeed and apply those talents, they’re going to want to leave,” DeJonge Schulman said.

Building up the federal workforce’s technology talent should form one prong in a national technology strategy, the panelists argued. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced an amendment in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 requiring the President to draft such a strategy, and he argued Oct. 21 that it is necessary to compete with China.

“We’re in a race with China for the 21st century, but unlike Beijing we have no idea where we want to go or how fast we’re going to get there,” Bennet said. “That doesn’t mean we should be copying them by picking national champions or imposing a ‘one size fits all’ approach, but it does mean we should act urgently to identify priorities, align federal policies and investments, and mobilize the nation in a coherent and enduring way.”

In AI Experiment, UK and US Simulate Adjacent Operations

Oct. 20, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

Held an ocean apart but simulating adjacent military forces, a virtual demonstration Oct. 18 gave the U.K. and U.S. militaries cause to project optimism over someday jointly adopting artificial intelligence “that can learn in the field.”

The test represented “just the first step” on the way to an “experimental trial environment,” according to an Oct. 20 news release. It also demonstrated the “integration of 15 state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, 12 U.K. and U.S. data sets, [five] automated MT workflows for training and retraining models based on mission needs, and the ability to deploy the models as a service to … end users and platforms.”

The Air Force Research Laboratory leads the U.S.’s side of the AI partnership agreement, made in December 2020 with the U.K.’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, enabling the demonstration. The AFRL didn’t immediately respond to a request for more details about the test scenario and what the algorithms do by press time.

“This research is designed to support adjacent, collaborating U.S. and UK brigades with enduring wide-area situational awareness, which aims to improve decision-making, increase operational tempo, reduce risk to life, and reduce manpower burden,” according to the release. The four-year agreement covers the sharing of technology in research as well as joint experiments that advance the concept of joint all-domain command and control.

In general, machine learning—a branch of artificial intelligence—involves “training” a set of automated procedures, or algorithms, with “labeled” data sets to recognize patterns in new data, make predictions, and improve at the task.

“The demonstration highlighted integrated AI technologies across the two nations, showcasing the ability to share data and algorithms through a common development and deployment platform to enable the rapid selection, testing, and deployment of [AI] capabilities,” according to the release. “It was the first of a rotational series of events” to be hosted by the two countries.

Participants took part from across military services, led from the AFRL’s Information Directorate in Rome, N.Y., and the U.K. lab’s site near Salisbury. Quoted in the news release, the U.S. Army’s chief roboticist in its Combat Capabilities Development Command, Robert W. Sadowski, alluded to aspects of the test, saying, “Advances in robotics and autonomy will make our formations more capable and mission-ready while providing protection to our warfighters through unprecedented stand-off.”

The Air Force has deployed AI algorithms in what Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall described as “a live operational kill chain” during his remarks at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September. An Air Force spokesperson told Air Force Magazine at the time that the algorithms are available at all of the Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground System sites and any air operations center.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said at the National Security Commission for Artificial Intelligence’s Global Emerging Technology Summit in July that more than 600 AI efforts were taking place across the department. The federal commission has since completed its work, after publishing a 756-page report, but a private foundation is picking up where it left off.

Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee on Oct. 19 proposed adding, above amounts proposed by the Biden administration, $600 million to the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act for AI for unified combatant commands and recruiting AI talent.

Heritage Foundation Ranks Air Force and Space Force as ‘Weak’ in New Report

Oct. 20, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Heritage Foundation ranked both the Air Force and the Space Force as “weak” in its 2022 Index of U.S. Military Strength released Oct. 20, citing issues ranging from low readiness and misaligned investment in fourth-generation platforms to insufficient space domain awareness and offensive space weapons to match peer capabilities.

Heritage, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, rated Air Force capacity and capability as “marginal,” its middle ranking, while scoring readiness and the overall Air Force as “weak” on a five-point scale of very weak to very strong. The Air Force’s low ranking in readiness hinges on an annual average of 130 flight hours for pilots and insufficient investment in fifth-generation stealth aircraft most capable of facing peer adversaries. The Space Force was rated as “weak” across the board.

“On the Air Force, we’re a bit puzzled by its investment strategy,” index editor Dakota Wood said. The analyst said the Air Force was “spending more on research and development to have an Air Force that it would like to have in the 2030s, while it’s not buying enough of current production aircraft to replace its aging current fleet.”

The demands of two decades of war wore out the fleet, which has an average age of 31 years. Research and development dollars continue to outpace procurement, and the Air Force plans to cut 137 fighters and 32 tankers from its fleet by the end of fiscal 2022, leaving it at 69 percent of the Air Force that last fought a peer rival, the report finds.

“USAF currently is at 86 percent of the capacity required” to fight two major regional contingency operations, according to the report. “However, the disposition of those assets limits the ability of the service to deploy them rapidly to a crisis region. While the active fighter and bomber assets that are available would likely prove adequate to fight and win a single regional conflict, when coupled with the low mission capability rates of those aircraft …, the global sourcing needed to field the required combat fighter force assets would leave the rest of the world uncovered.”

Using the 2018 National Defense Strategy as a guidepost, the report cites mission capable rates of between 52 and 74 percent for legacy aircraft (fourth-generation and below) as insufficient to face a peer rival. It also notes a shortfall of 1,925 pilots, a number that improved slightly over the past year due to the lack of commercial hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also highlighted historic lows in sortie rates at less than 1.5 per week and flying time at 131 hours per year.

The report says the low rates are far below “healthy fighter force thresholds” of three sorties a week and 200 hours a year per pilot.

COVID had a severe effect on flight hours and sorties, the report assesses, and Heritage states that it will take several years of training for fighter pilots to recover what they lost in 2020. “Unfortunately, the Air Force is not moving on that path and will cut 87,479 flying hours from its budget in FY 2022—a reduction of 7 percent,” the report states.

Chart

Description automatically generated — Courtesy of the Heritage Foundation

Senior research fellow John “JV” Venable, 25-year Air Force veteran, told Air Force Magazine the purchase of fourth-generation aircraft over fifth-generation platforms puts the U.S. at a clear disadvantage against a peer rival.

“The Chinese and the Russians do not fear fourth-generation platforms,” he said. “But they do fear the F-35. That says a lot about what we should be buying right now.”

The Air Force asked to buy 12 F-15EXs in its 2022 budget request and included another dozen F-15EXs in its 2022 unfunded priorities list. However, in a notable break from tradition, the service did not request any new F-35 strike fighters in its 2022 unfunded priorities list.

“We could be applying that funding into the fifth-gen fighter force and actually moving the ball forward with regard to capability of our assets,” Venable said.

Neither the Air Force nor Space Force could immediately respond to a request for comment on the report’s findings.

Space Force Gets Failing Grade

Venable said the report rates the 2-year-old Space Force as “weak” based on aging and unprotected satellites, lack of space domain awareness, and insufficient offensive and defensive capabilities.

“The Space Force is not capable of meeting current—much less future—on-demand, operational, and tactical-level warfighter requirements,” states the report.

Venable said the Marshall Islands-based Lockheed Martin radar tracking system called Space Fence, which went online in 2020, only provides updates on the movement of some 26,000 objects every two hours.

“In between those two hours, what those platforms do, those satellites or missiles, … we wouldn’t have known that because of the limitation on our spaceborne and our land-based surveillance platforms,” he said, citing recent reports that China flew a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle through space in August.

Venable said the Space Force needs radars and satellites with optics to see spaceborne platforms and changes in the domain on a more regular basis.

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama agreed that space-based platforms are lacking.

“Space-based platforms, unmanned assets, and more distributed logistics capabilities are essential to deterring China,” he said, also citing reports of the Chinese hypersonic missile test.

“We’re not in a good place,” Rogers told Air Force Magazine in a pull-aside interview when asked about U.S. hypersonics progress an event launch marking the launch of the report. “What I’m telling you is that we’ve got some things going on that are going to put us in a great place.”

Rogers, who keynoted the launch event, cited classified information in the hypersonics area that was “really exciting.” He also said he is not worried about recent Air Force failed hypersonics tests.

“It’s one of the things I keep trying to get members to get accustomed to,” he said. “I want people to push the envelope and fail because every time you test and fail, you learn something. That’s how Kim Jong Un finally developed a missile that could reach the United States.”

The report is complimentary of the President’s proposed $17.4 billion 2022 budget for Space Force, a 13 percent increase over FY 21, but it highlights ongoing growing pains.

Heritage praises Space Force for assimilating 60 disparate offices related to space from across DOD in its first two years, but warned that a significant portion of the 21,200 space professionals that remain in the Army and Navy must be incorporated into the Space Force to “remedy the dysfunctional oversight or command and control issues that the Space Force initiative was intended to resolve.”

The report says it is not likely such transfers will be complete until fiscal year 2024 or later. The transferring of space-related units and missions from the Army and Navy has been delayed by the failure of Congress to pass a 2022 budget.

Venable said the Space Force is also behind adversaries such as China in terms of offensive capabilities in space. He said the U.S. has ground-based blinding assets that can temporarily impede a satellite’s operations, whereas China has anti-satellite missiles on Earth and laser platforms on orbit right now.

“We have no true, at least unclassified, systems that can take an offensive punch to the Chinese,” he said.

Rogers also addressed the Space Force’s apparent lack of space weapons compared to the known capabilities of adversaries China and Russia.

“We intentionally are moving or developing Space Force in a layered effort over a five- or six-year period,” he said. “I expect us to, as it matures, to continue to put more and more money in what they’re developing both offensively and defensively. So, I’m pretty pleased with where we are there. I would like to be pacing that well in other areas.”

KC-46 Completes First F-16 Coronet After Interim Capability Release

Oct. 20, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Just days after Air Mobility Command cleared the KC-46 to start refueling Air Force F-15s and F-16s, a tanker from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing completed the Pegasus’ first Tanker Airlift Control Center-tasked F-16 Coronet.

Coronets are missions in which a group of fighters are assigned one or multiple tankers to fly with them over an ocean to ensure the smaller aircraft have enough fuel.

The KC-46A from the 344th Air Refueling Squadron at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., flew to Naval Station Rota, Spain, where it linked up with F-16s from the D.C. Air National Guard’s 121st Fighter Squadron.

The tanker then flew with the fighters, which were returning from a deployment to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, across the Atlantic to their home station of Joint Base Andrews, Md.

The Oct. 16-17 mission followed closely on the Oct. 13 “interim capability release” issued by AMC that allowed KC-46s to refuel all variants of the F-15 and F-16 using the air-to-air refueling boom. It was the third such release, after AMC first cleared the tanker to use its centerline drogue, then permitted it to use its boom to refuel C-17s, B-52s, and other KC-46s in some circumstances.

With the most recent release, 62 percent of aircraft that “request air refueling support” from U.S. Transportation Command can now be accommodated using the Pegasus tanker, AMC said.

As the KC-46 has been allowed to take on more missions, the Air Force’s KC-10s and KC-135s have been freed up for other missions. This proved especially vital in August, when AMC’s fleet was stretched thin by the Afghanistan non-combatant evacuation operation that involved scores of airlift and tanker aircraft. This led to the KC-46 performing its first operational missions.

Yet while the tanker continues to expand its mission set, it still has years to go before it is expected to be declared fully operational. The plane’s boom has been plagued by issues, principally with the Remote Vision System, a 3-D video display that has suffered from latency and blind spots in certain conditions. As a result, the KC-46 has previously scraped aircraft when trying to refuel them, which is of particular concern for stealth airframes such as the F-22, F-35, and B-2, which have sensitive treatments to keep their observability low.

B-1s Operate From Diego Garcia for First Time in 15 Years

Oct. 20, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

B-1 bombers operated out of Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia for the first time in more than 15 years recently as part of Pacific Air Forces’ bomber task force missions.

The B-1B Lancers, along with about 200 Airmen from the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., landed on the small island in the Indian Ocean on Oct. 17, the Air Force announced in a press release.

“Global B-1 operations not only provide strategic deterrence to our nation’s adversaries, but also strong, palpable assurance to our allies,” Lt. Col. Ross Hobbs, 37th Bomb Squadron director of operations, said in a statement. “It’s been over 15 years since B-1s have operated out of this location and the 37th Bomb Squadron is beyond proud to be back. We are extremely grateful for the opportunity and well prepared to meet our nation’s call.”

Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory and the Chagos Archipelago. Along with Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, it marks a key strategic base for military operations in the Indo-Pacific region. The Air Force, in particular, has used the island as a base to send bombers into the U.S. Central Command area of operations.

The Air Force introduced bomber task forces in 2020 as an alternative to continuous bomber presences outside the continental U.S. Since then, B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s have all deployed to the Indo-Pacific at different times, often integrating with allies and partners or participating in exercises.

“Bomber Task Force missions, in support of INDOPACOM’s operational and strategic objectives, are extremely valuable to our aircrew because of the multi-country integration opportunities,” Hobbs said. “They also give us the opportunity to showcase the unmatched range, speed, and lethality of the B-1.”

B-2s last deployed to Diego Garcia in August 2020, while B-52s operated from there in January 2020 during a period of increased tension with Iran.

Elsewhere across the globe, B-1s from 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron of Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, are deployed to RAF Fairford, England, as part of a bomber task force for U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

Right on Cue, North Korea Testing Ballistic Missiles, as Predicted by DIA

Oct. 19, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

No sooner had the Defense Intelligence Agency issued its North Korean Military Power report, in which it predicted Pyongyang would resume ballistic missile tests, than North Korea did exactly that, lofting a submarine-launched ballistic missile Oct. 19.

The test, in which an SLBM launched from the port of Sinpo into the Sea of Japan, was detected and characterized by South Korea, which said the missile attained an altitude of about 40 miles, traveling about 280 miles downrange. Japan said two missiles were fired.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command issued a statement saying it is “aware” of the missile launch and that “we are consulting closely with the Republic of Korea and Japan, as well as other regional allies and partners.” The U.S. “condemns these actions” and calls on Pyongyang to “refrain from any further destabilizing acts.” INDOPACOM assessed that the missile doesn’t pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or that of its allies, and said it will continue to monitor the situation. The U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea and Japan “remains ironclad,” INDOPACOM said.

The DIA, in its Oct. 15 report, said, “it is possible we could see a test of a long-range missile” from North Korea “over the next year.” Even if such tests were not forthcoming, “Pyongyang will probably focus on training and improving its missile forces, which are increasingly central to North Korea’s deterrence strategy,” the DIA said.

The report reiterates DIA’s previously stated assessment that North Korea is focusing on ballistic missiles—and its nuclear program—to deter the U.S. from an attack. The asymmetric strategy emulates some of Russia’s approach to national security since the end of the Cold War, substituting weapons of mass destruction for conventional capability. The DIA judges North Korea’s conventional power to be extremely large but increasingly obsolete, especially compared to U.S. and South Korean forces on the peninsula, hence the emphasis on the asymmetric strategy.

Pyongyang continues to pose a “critical security challenge” to the U.S. and its allies, the DIA said. The North Korea report is patterned after the Pentagon’s “Soviet Military Power” assessments of the 1980s, which it has revisited in recent years with similar reports on China.

North Korea has claimed that it’s conducted other missile tests in recent weeks, including that of a hypersonic missile, called the “Hwasong 8,” in September, although U.S. Strategic Command could not verify that. The United Nations has barred North Korea from conducting long-range ballistic missile tests or pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The last time Pyongyang conducted a long-range, land-based ballistic missile test was in November 2017, and its last known nuclear test was two months before that.

North Korean President Kim Jong Un’s “vision” for his nation’s military is to have an ability to “directly hold the United States at risk” and compel it to make policy decisions “beneficial to Pyongyang,” DIA director Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier said in the report.

The DIA said North Korea’s asymmetric strategy includes cyber espionage, cyber theft, and cyberattacks on “critical infrastructure” in adversary countries. Though North Korea appeared to be on the brink of collapse 30 years ago—suffering a three-year famine that killed “almost a million people”—it endures against all odds, the DIA said, becoming “a growing menace” to the U.S. and its allies in the region.

North Korea’s huge conventional forces are capable of a “high-intensity, short-duration attack on the South with thousands of artillery and rocket systems.” This capability could cause “thousands of casualties and massive disruption to a regional economic hub.” Kim Jong Un has put “overriding priority” on military investments, to the detriment of all other economic sectors, the DIA said.

Conventionally, the North Korean military is suffering from accelerating obsolescence, according to the DIA. Given that the opening round of any conflict across the 38th parallel will likely be fought in the air, the DIA judges Pyongyang’s aircraft and air defense systems as decades out of date. The most advanced fighters in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) military are 1980s-vintage, Russian-made MiG-29s, which, along with a lot of 1970s and earlier aircraft, comprise the bulk of the nation’s air force. Together with ground-based, “primarily fixed, but transportable” air defense missile batteries, they are capable of “basic air defense operations.” The DPRK air force would “struggle to penetrate South Korean air defenses in an attack role.”

Pyongyang fields 900 combat aircraft, 200 transports, and 300 helicopters, the DIA said. The most modern gear is clustered around Pyongyang itself. “The capital has one of the most dense concentrations of [anti-aircraft artillery] in the world,” the report noted.

Along with the MiG-29s, North Korea has some Su-25 Frogfoot attack jets and MiG-23 Flogger interceptors. The bulk of the air force is “much older,” and the country is “one of the only air forces in the world that still operates MiG-21s, MiG-19s, MigG-17s, and MiG-15s,” the latter of which date back to the Korean War.

The bulk of air defense missile systems are Soviet-era SA-2s, SA-3s, SA-5s, and SA-13s. The latter, though a “double digit” surface-to-air missile system, is a vehicle-based system designed to hit aircraft at “medium to low altitudes,” the DIA said. The rest are systems the U.S. defeated 30 years ago in the 1991 Gulf War.

Some new systems are being introduced in very small numbers. “During a 2020 military parade, North Korea first displayed a new mobile SAM launcher and accompanying radar that externally resembled the Russian S-300 and Chinese HQ-9,” the DIA noted.

North Korean pilots only get about 15-25 flying hours a year, so their proficiency is extremely basic.

Though the industry was capable of assembling combat aircraft from kits supplied by Russia and China in the 1980s and 1990s, “that capability has waned,” the DIA judged.

To maintain “its dated force,” North Korea must rely on “cannibalization and the purchase of spare parts from overseas markets.”

Pyongyang has a very basic capability to build “small to medium” unmanned aerial vehicles, mostly based on Chinese designs, and is importing others. Some of these have been used for “reconnaissance missions over South Korea and which could be equipped with rudimentary armaments,” according to the report, which notes these have GPS-waypoint navigational capability. A sole exception to the older UAVs is one based on the American MQM-107D Streaker, “that probably was acquired from Middle Eastern sources.” Pyongyang is expected to graduate to larger UAVs in the near future.

North Korea’s aircraft industry generally is limited to building airplanes, “such as the Cessna 172,” the DIA asserted.

Though Kim and President Donald Trump held a summit meeting in 2018, committing to a “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, with the aim of a “lasting and stable peace regime,” there’s no evidence that Kim is abiding by that goal, the DIA said.

“In the following years, North Korea tested multiple new missiles that threaten South Korea and U.S. forces stationed there, displayed a new, potentially more capable, ICBM and new weapons for its conventional force,” Berrier said in his foreword to the report. Pyongyang will continue to be “a challenge” for the U.S. for years to come, he said.