Amid Growing China-Taiwan Tension, Lawmakers Call for End to ‘Strategic Ambiguity’

Oct. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Amid a surge in Chinese aggression toward Taiwan in September and October, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for the U.S. to break from its longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to the defense of the island.

Speaking during a virtual forum hosted by Politico on Oct. 7, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) agreed that the policy—whereby the U.S. refuses to officially say whether it would intervene militarily if China invades Taiwan—needs to change, saying doing so would act as a deterrent to the Chinese.

“I think that removing the ambiguity would be good and would probably have a calming effect on China’s aspirations,” said Tillis, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I think it’s also important for the American people to understand how devastating China’s invasion of Taiwan would be, economically in terms of safety and security in that region. I do believe that we need to make it clear to China that there’s a consequence.”

“I certainly would move away from strategic ambiguity,” Bera agreed. “I use the term ‘strategic deterrence,’ but deterrence only if there’s clarity in that deterrence. And often, we just talk about the military and deterrence. There’s economic, as well. What kind of multilateral sanctions would be placed on China should they invade Taiwan? What else would happen in the region?”

Concerns about China’s ambitions toward Taiwan have been growing as of late. Since the start of October, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has reported 150 aircraft from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force entering the Taiwanese Air Defense Identification Zone, a record-breaking number.

“The United States remains concerned by the People’s Republic of China’s provocative military activity near Taiwan, which is destabilizing, risks miscalculations, and undermines regional peace and stability. We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” Defense Department spokesperson Lt. Col. Martin Meiners said in a statement to Air Force Magazine.

Foreign policy experts, meanwhile, say the recent actions are intended to be a show of strength and aggression.

“No matter what your viewpoint is, it’s a sign of aggression,” John Venable, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Air Force Magazine. “It’s just, what is the aggression focused on? I think in all of 2020, there were some 380 reports of Chinese aircraft penetrating Taiwanese Air Defense Zone, the ADIZ. And if you go back in history, that was probably the largest number that had been in recent years, if not ever. … And in the last week and a half, we’ve had some 150.”

Some fear that China is building toward an invasion of the island, which the Chinese government considers part of its territory. Taiwan’s defense minister has warned that China will be ready for a full-scale invasion by 2025, according to The Guardian. Others point to the recent actions as an example of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s looking to test the U.S.’s commitments in the region.

Dating back to 1979, the U.S.’s China-Taiwan policy has been rooted in the Taiwan Relations Act along with three joint communiques and six assurances. As part of that approach, the federal government has agreed “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character,” regularly selling the Taiwenese military weapons and equipment.

Nowhere, however, has the U.S. officially committed to intervening with force if Taiwan is attacked. Proponents of strategic ambiguity have argued that such a move would weaken deterrence by encouraging Taiwan to declare formal independence, angering China in the process.

“Strategic ambiguity, I believe, just flew out the window with Xi,” Robert Wilkie, former Veterans Affairs Secretary and undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told Air Force Magazine. “He has threatened all of his neighbors—India, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan. This is not the 1970s, when that notion was first entertained by Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Xi has blown right through that, and Taiwan, I believe he sees as the linchpin—not just to eject the United States from the region, but his legacy as the most important Chinese leader ever.”

For now, the U.S. continues to follow that policy, with a DOD spokesperson telling Air Force Magazine that “the United States has an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. This is why we will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability. … The U.S. commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region.”

However, the Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 7 that U.S. Marines have been deployed in Taiwan for at least a year, helping train Taiwenese service members. The Chinese government soon replied by calling for the U.S. to cut military ties with the island.

Language Scholars Program Helps Airmen Understand Adversaries and Partners

Oct. 8, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

First came the eight online courses with native Arabic speakers. Then the three in-country immersion programs, each three weeks long. But the street hockey game with teenagers in Oman, followed by a beach cookout, were what helped Air Force Maj. Austin Pickrell realize the cultural intangibles that strengthen ties with partner nations.

Pickrell, 33, told Air Force Magazine that the Language Enabled Airmen Program “has been a real pillar within my Air Force career.” He’d even consider it “a retention tool,” he said by phone from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, where he is a regional desk officer for U.S. Air Forces Africa.

His local language instructors in Oman had to up their games—not unlike Pickrell had to do playing street hockey with teens—because he and his LEAP colleagues were already ahead of the curve.

“They made a super advanced course, which was kind of cool, and they had to make it on the fly,” Pickrell recalled. “And they gave us a lot of really tailored experience and knowledge,” he said, noting how cultural experiences such as sharing a traditional coffee service can help him to connect with partner nations’ militaries.

“Basically, it was a great time,” he said. “The opportunity to use Air Force time, and Air Force resources, and training that the Air Force has paid for, to improve and grow my language skills while doing my day job, and to travel if there’s the opportunity, has been a major draw.”

The LEAP Scholars program falls under the Air Force Culture and Language Center (AFCLC) at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. It is not a foundational language program but one that recruits and accepts volunteer Airmen who already have a foundation in a particular language and want to retain and strengthen that language. They do not attend in-person sessions.

“LEAP is a program that started over a decade ago, recognizing, particularly from back in the middle 2000s, that the strategy for breaking the insurgency wasn’t working,” said Howard Ward, director of AFCLC.

“The ability to work with different cultures, cross-cultural communication, intercultural competence was going to be the key,” Ward explained. “I think I heard the quote once, ‘You can speak three languages and be a jerk in all of them.’ So, it’s important that we develop language and intercultural skills concurrently.”

When Pickrell was in high school, he recalls toiling away with the Rosetta Stone Arabic software on his computer. He had started learning Arabic because an ROTC instructor at Ohio State University said the Air Force needed recruits with foreign language skills, especially the hard ones such as Arabic.

“I knew I really wanted to travel a lot, and I knew that Arabic was spoken in a lot of countries,” he said.

It’s about more than the travel opportunities, though, Ward said. Language abilities provide a strategic advantage to better understanding America’s adversaries. Fully one-quarter of the LEAP program participants—some 3,200 Airmen and Guardians—are clustered in the languages of Chinese, Korean, Farsi, Arabic, and Russian.

During a Virtual Security Cooperation engagement with the Chilean Air Force and fellow LEAP Scholars: Lt Col Hebdon and TSgt Diaz, both are LEAP Scholars assigned at AFSOUTH/Command Surgeon General Office. Courtesy AFCLC

“Our overall mission in the center is partner interoperability and adversary understanding: their language, region, and culture,” Ward said—”to grow folks that are better capable of having dialogue with them, so that we can hopefully compete and not go to conflict,” he added. “But also to help us find the intentions that are quite often hiding in plain sight with indirect ways of speaking a highly contextual language.”

The LEAP program is an online platform that connects participants 24 hours a day, and best of all, it’s not boring, its users say.

“You’re working with live instructors, where you’re getting feedback, you’re getting interaction with anywhere from one to four more students,” Ward said.

Pickrell sings the program’s praises.

“I’ve been really fortunate in my courses because mine have been amazing,” he said. “They have forced me to get better, like I can feel my pronunciation and my speed go faster, like you’re pushing on an accelerator in a car.”

That accelerator has advanced his career, too, giving Pickrell the opportunity to engage with high-level military officials worldwide. As a desk officer, Pickrell reaches out to the U.S. security assistance offices of Arabic-speaking countries in Africa to help them strengthen partner capacity.

“I actually translated for an Air Force one-star and two North African military officers in Arabic, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had,” Pickrell said.

He is also regularly contacted to translate documents into Arabic, and he has helped inform operations plans.

Even enlisted Airmen and Guardians in the program are tapped for high-level responsibilities and positions thanks to their specialized language skills.

Senior Master Sgt. Diego Yoshisaki, a theater security cooperation manager for the 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., served a one-year tour as the U.S. Air Force liaison to the Portuguese Air Force at Lajes Field in the Azores Islands in the North Atlantic.

“Anything and everything dealing with the U.S. and the Portuguese, it came from our office,” said Yoshisaki, a native Spanish speaker from Bolivia who underwent a month of immersion training in Rio de Janeiro to learn the related language of Portuguese.

“It is a high-paced environment, but nonetheless very rewarding,” he said of his work in the Azores. “You’re not just learning how to say certain words in a different language, but you’re really adapting yourself to the cultural level of understanding for that region.”

At Lajes, that meant getting a document signed by the base commander first required a “café da manhã,” a midmorning coffee and chat with a staffer.

“You just go down, drink some espresso, and really talk about daily life and eventually say, ‘Hey, by the way, I sent the paperwork,’” he said.

In Portugal, Yoshisaki regularly engaged with senior officers and the U.S. ambassador in Lisbon. Now fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese with a proficient military vocabulary, Yoshisaki is tapped for senior-level engagement with partners in the Western Hemisphere.

In September, Yoshisaki joined other LEAP Scholars to help support key leader engagement at the Central American Air Chiefs Conference along with the Mexican Air Force chief at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. To his surprise, when a foreign affairs officer was not available, he was tapped to serve as translator for a high-level meeting between 12th Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Barry Cornish and commander of the Mexican Air Force, Gen. José Gerardo Vega Rivera.

“When you have a general officer, a U.S. general officer, talking about certain items, you have to be able to communicate the message the way it was intended,” Yoshisaki said.

“It was stressful, because other nations will look at the stripes and not the rank on your shoulders, just between enlisted and officer. But once you present yourself … professionally, then they really understand, ‘This person knows what they’re talking about,’” he said. “It shows the care and also the intentional and deliberate engagement that the U.S. Air Force is [using] to deal with partner nations when you assign a language-enabled airman.”

TRANSCOM Officer Previews Evacuation Lessons Learned, After-Action Report Is Next

Oct. 8, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

U.S. Transportation Command is already conducting an after-action report of the Noncombatant Evacuation Operation that flew more than 124,000 Afghan refugees, third-country nationals, and Americans from Kabul to safety in August to identify lessons learned, said the command’s director of operations, Maj. Gen. Corey J. Martin, who offered a preview to journalists Oct. 7.

“A larger after-action report activity is underway,” Martin promised on a call with the Defense Writers Group.

Martin revealed that he was not satisfied with the processes for TRANSCOM to scale to the demand of the airlift operation from Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) over 17 days in August.

“In the early days of where there was that urgency to go, we realized that we were changing processes,” he said.

Martin said that as director of operations, he wanted a scalable process at his fingertips.

“What I would like to do is just be able to have your, what we call our normal battle rhythm, our normal processes, be able to be scaled to any operation,” he said. “And I did not see that that was the case.”

Martin also said there needs to be less of a focus on the number of aircraft in the operation.

“There’s a feeling sometimes that it’s all about the aircraft and how many aircraft that you can have,” he said.

At the peak of the Afghanistan NEO, TRANSCOM had 60 C-17s focused on the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. On a typical day such as Oct. 7, about 60 C-17s were on missions around the world. During the NEO, C-5s flew more to keep up with the global missions that C-17s were called away from.

“You have this idea that sometimes aircraft is all it takes to make an operation go,” he said. “I think one of the lessons that started to emerge early is that it’s more than just aircraft—you need places to put the aircraft.”

At one point in the operation, flights out of HKIA were paused for several hours until intermediate locations could flow people out and open capacity.

Martin described the concept of “nodes,” including basing and overflight access from allies and partners.

“It’s the ability to have the throughput of the flow of personnel,” he said. “Early on, we knew there had to be more places as we extracted people from HKIA at the greatest velocity possible because of the timeline and because of the threat—you then needed to have enough places to put them as they flow through the system back to the United States.”

Martin also previewed an information technology lesson learned, but he emphasized that it did not affect the operational capacity of the airlift.

“This operation would speak to the utility of a joint all-domain command and control system that has more wide sensors and a greater sharing of information,” he said. “There was time still spent on point-to-point communications to discuss individual data points.”

A joint all-domain command and control system, he said, would involve “authoritative data that is shared more quickly at different echelons.”

“It highlights, I think, areas that if we were going to take an operation like this, scale it to a larger exercise, you would want to have that type of interoperability without human interface needed to accelerate operations,” he said.

Rolls-Royce Digitally Modeled Wing and Pylon With Engine to Win B-52 Contract

Oct. 7, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

To win the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program, Rolls-Royce digitally “built” the bomber’s wing with the company’s F130 engines installed to demonstrate its advantages, Rolls-Royce North America President and CEO Tom Bell said in an online seminar.

“We digitally integrated that engine into the pod, into the pylon, into the wing, and dynamically modeled the entire system of operation to model for the customer exactly how efficient that product would be on that wing,” which was “designed … in the 1950s, early 60s,” Bell said in a streaming discussion with Defense One. He also revealed that Rolls’ proposal calls for modifying the wing “as little as possible” in order to reduce risk.

With the digital model, “We were able to demonstrate for the Air Force … how our engine, and this approach, would lower their integration risk, so as to integrate this engine efficiently, affordably, and on schedule,” Bell said. The digital model also demonstrated how maintenance could be accomplished more easily, he said.

The Air Force announced that Rolls-Royce was the winner of the CERP contract in September and that the company will build and install 608 engines, plus spares, for all 76 B-52s. The initial phase of the contract is worth $500 million; if all options are exercised, the value will be $2.6 billion. The last B-52 was built in 1962, and all 76 are flying with their original Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines.

The Air Force made digital presentations a requirement of its B-52 CERP proposals, insisting that, for the first time, it would accept no paper and that competitors would have to battle each other in a virtual environment that was transparent to all. The approach—which the Air Force dubbed an “eSeries” program to highlight its digital nature—was taken in part to ward off program-delaying protests. To date, neither of the competitors, GE Aviation nor Pratt & Whitney, have announced they will protest the Air Force’s selection of Rolls-Royce, although they still have time in which to make that determination.

“Digital is here to stay,” Bell said in the Defense One event. “Our designs are being shared with customers, and as a result of that,” the company is “lowering cycle times to actually not only develop whole new engines, but also develop whole new aircraft. We have examples in our portfolio where years are being taken off of the development cycle for airplanes.” The industry has embraced digital, and “Rolls-Royce [is] right at the vanguard of that.”

Bell said a digital approach was necessary on the CERP anyway because of the challenges of integrating a “modern engine on a relatively old wing.” He said that “Frankly, the least amount of change, for the U.S. Air Force, would be better, from a risk standpoint.”

The digital model reproduced “the weight, thrust, circumference of the engine and the diameter of the nacelle and the changes, if any, to the pylon that would be required,” as well as how the center of gravity would change depending on engine nacelle placement. “We engineered the whole piece of kit showing the wing, pylon, nacelle, engine integration, the gearboxes, the fuel flow, the electrical.” The model demonstrated that the F130 “would perform in a superior fashion on that wing.”

That fact “drives the maintenance burden down, … drives the sustainment burden down. That’s a fantastic achievement, about how the U.S. Air Force [and] … U.S. military is exploiting commercial technologies to make sure that they drive down the sustainability cost of the products that we all rely on.” Bell said the digital approach is “exciting [in] that it becomes the collaboration tool that unlocks the clock and unlocks the speed with which we can bring these products to market.”

The use of digital and virtual processes has worked so well for Rolls-Royce that Bell said the company will continue leasing only about 40 percent of the office space it had been using in the downtown Indianapolis area. Its lease was up, and the pandemic showed that it could accomplish most of its tasks with employees working from home.

“We’re re-purposing” the remaining leased space, Bell said, “to make it ‘uber-collaboration’ and team space … To make it highly effective for when we have to innovate and collaborate [and] work together to solve complex problems in ways that can’t be done with Webex or Teams.” He said that Rolls-Royce is “going under the assumption that people that can effectively work from home will continue to do so.” The company will be cutting the ribbon on the refurbished 40 percent of office space early in 2022, he said.

DOD Adopts Plan to Confront ‘Existential Threat’ of Climate Change

Oct. 7, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Defense Department announced Oct. 7 that it has adopted a Climate Adaptation Plan to guide decision-making on everything from readiness to supply chains. The plan and accompanying statement by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III were prompted by a Jan. 28 Executive Order by President Joe Biden calling for all agencies to adopt adaptation and resilience plans to address significant climate risks and vulnerabilities.

“Climate change is an existential threat to our nation’s security,” Austin said in the statement accompanying the plan announcement. “The Department of Defense must act swiftly and boldly to take on this challenge and prepare for damage that cannot be avoided.”

Austin’s statement said the plan will guide the nation’s warfighting needs “under increasingly extreme environmental conditions.”

The consequences of climate change are deteriorating U.S. military installations, limiting the capacity for the military to train and operate, and causing environmental conditions that may trigger instability around the world.

While environmental justice is noted in the document, the Climate Adaptation Plan, or CAP, makes the case for using climate change research, data, and innovation to achieve greater force readiness.

“We do not intend merely to adapt to the devastation of climate change,” Austin said. “The bold steps we are taking are good for the climate and also good for our mission of defending the nation.”

The report itself identifies climate change as “a critical national security issue and threat multiplier” as well as a management challenge. The report notes that extreme weather is already costing the Defense Department billions of dollars in degrading mission capabilities.

“These effects and costs are likely to increase as climate change accelerates,” the report states.

Not adapting to climate change will lead to lost military capability, weakened alliances, and degraded infrastructure, among other problems.

Austin, who signed the plan Sept. 1, made the case that the plan will make the U.S. military “even more resilient, efficient, and innovative.”

In a press release, the Pentagon said the new DOD CAP will guide decision-making regarding operations, planning activities, business processes, and resource allocation.

Five lines of effort include: climate-informed decision-making; training and equipping a climate-ready force; resiliently built and natural infrastructure; supply chain resilience and innovation; and enhanced adaptation and resilience through collaboration. Each will use data monitoring, innovation, climate literacy, and environmental justice to achieve its objectives.

DOD describes an “end state” that ensures the department can preserve operational capability and operate under changing climate conditions.

The department defined climate-informed decision making as the use of “actionable science” in all department processes.

A training and readiness element describes “a climate-ready force” and new focus operating “under the most extreme and adverse conditions.” The climate will influence major exercises and contingency planning.

For installations, the department will use a “Defense Climate Assessment Tool” to design installation resilience plans. Decisions about supply chain management will be made to reduce vulnerabilities and promote technologies for “a clean energy transformation.”

The press release also describes how “DOD’s environmental justice strategy” will impact department organizational structure, policies, and agile mission assurance. Specific changes or when they might take place were not outlined.

Former Air Force Acquisition Chief: DOD Should Leverage ‘Revolving Door’ in New Ways

Oct. 7, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

As the Air Force and the rest of the Department of Defense look to modernize and compete in a rapidly changing world, they need to attract top talent in a new array of fields, from programmers to data scientists to quantum researchers.

In order to actually make that work, DOD and Congress need to rethink what goes into governmental service, and that includes the notorious “revolving door,” the Air Force’s former acquisition boss said Oct. 7.

Government watchdogs and lawmakers have long decried the practice of top officials leaving the Pentagon only to land jobs at leading defense contractors. Easing the differences between civil service and commercial work is necessary in certain areas, argued Will Roper, the Air Force’s former assistant secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics, during Politico’s virtual Defense Forum.

“For the system to be in equilibrium, the ‘revolving door’ pejorative needs to become superlative. The type of talent that we need in fields like AI or quantum sensing, it’s so valuable commercially, we can’t delude ourselves to think we’re going to compete with the opportunities in private markets,” Roper said.

Indeed, the divide between commercial cyber and technology companies and the military is so severe, Roper said, that the two are “annexed.” His solution is to lower the barriers to entry—and exit—into the Pentagon workforce.

“If there were opportunities to come into the government 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, I think we would see a completely different dynamic within the government,” said Roper, now the CEO of drone logistics company Volansi.

While the military cannot hope to offer the same pay and benefits as a private company, “innovators and entrepreneurs gravitate to problems,” Roper added, and government should work to make itself an attractive, flexible place where those people can go to wrestle with those problems.

Roper isn’t the only one pushing for changes in how civil and military service are understood. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond and other leaders within the U.S. Space Force have touted the benefits of a new approach that will allow part-time service among individuals who are already working in the space industry.

The importance of flexibility in the workforce to leverage talent isn’t just a theoretical benefit, added Mark Sirangelo, a member of the Defense Innovation Board and a former executive vice president with Sierra Nevada Corp. Speaking alongside Roper at the virtual forum, Sirangelo pointed to how China handles its workforce.

“If we don’t look at how … we bring the best of the best to the upcoming issues and potential fight that we might have, we’re going to have a challenge here,” Sirangelo said. “And I think one of the things that at least I’ve seen that China has been doing is, they have significant human capital—that’s not news to anyone—but I think the other piece of that, though, is career tracking that capital, so that the experience and longevity and understanding gets to be maintained.”

Between the Defense Department and private industry, Sirangelo said, the U.S. has to develop its own human capital plan to leverage its strengths.

That plan will feed into a larger strategic approach in competing with China—and just like it should emphasize flexibility and collaboration between industry and government, the broader strategy can’t be too rigid, Roper said.

“If we have the fastest and most agile system in the world, then we can deal with the most uncertainty, and that will have a deterrent factor for the U.S.,” Roper said. “And we don’t have that today. So we’re on the losing side of the strategy, and we must get to the winning side. The answer is not going to be airplanes, ships, [or] ground vehicles. The answer is going to be the fastest and most agile system, to build whatever. The future is too uncertain to say, ‘We know how to beat China in 2030, 2035.’ … If you don’t know what the future is, be agile.”

Space Development Agency Aims for 2-Year Cycle in Rolling Out New Capabilities. Is It Fast Enough?

Oct. 7, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

When it comes to developing and deploying new technologies for the Space Force and other space-focused units in the Defense Department, the Space Development Agency wants to be more like a cell phone maker and less like an aircraft manufacturer.

Derek Tournear, director of the SDA, made the comparison Oct. 7 at Politico’s virtual Defense Forum, explaining the difference in the process for rolling out technological improvements.

“The biggest difference is the spiral times, and … how long it takes to get new capabilities out there—cell phones every year, automobiles, new models every year but realistically major changes every five years, and aircraft, 40 years is really when you get a new big design,” Tournear said.

For the SDA, which is currently in the process of transitioning from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering to the Department of the Air Force, that means regular updates every two years, utilizing innovation from the fast-expanding commercial space market.

“We want to get new capabilities in the hands of the warfighter every other year. We are doing that based on a completely new architecture, hundreds of satellites—and we did not develop that technology; that technology was developed primarily from the commercial enterprise to commoditize space,” Tournear said. “So what we want to do is leverage that development and take that and be a fast follower, rather than trying to drive what happens in the market.”

But Tournear’s goals and plans have at least one influential skeptic. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) has long been an advocate for the U.S. to lead in space and even joined forces with Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) to propose an independent “Space Corps” in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. And speaking during the same panel with Tournear on Oct. 7, Cooper criticized the SDA plan as too slow and too dependent on the commercial sector.

“With all due respect to Derek, what he was calling for in his remarks a second ago, being a fast follower or taking commercial technology and reusing it for the government—there are other aspects of the federal government that do not take that approach,” Cooper said. “Now, they’re largely secret, but they try to lead the rest of the world, commercial and governmental, by a decade or more. We need a similar approach in space.

“And to offer our warfighters new tech every two years, that may sound good, but my guess is that sounds slow to Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos, or small companies like Relativity Space that are now 3D-printing their own rockets, something heretofore unimagined by our Air Force and other friends. So we’ve got to be tougher, faster, bolder, and I’m really not seeing that like I would like to see it.”

Tournear clarified that the two-year cycle is based off SDA’s plan to launch tranches of satellites—“tranche 0” will be launched in the coming months, with a larger “tranche 1” expected to follow in 2024, which is “essentially as fast as industry can produce those components,” Tournear said.

Beyond that, he added, there’s nothing holding the agency from going faster at the moment—but he also voiced concern that that could change as the transition to the Department of the Air Force continues.

“There is a fear that as we get merged in—as the SDA gets more entrenched within the department—there is a fear that we will be slowed down because there’ll be an increase in bureaucracy and oversight that doesn’t give you a lot of return on investment,” Tournear said.

Cooper closed his comments by also emphasizing the need for speed, especially in building up the military’s satellite architecture, adding that his fear of a “Pearl Harbor in space” is growing.

“We could be blind, deaf, and dumb—and spastic and incontinent and impotent—if our near-peer adversaries were to launch such a surprise attack,” Cooper said. “For decades, our Air Force launched satellites without any protection whatsoever. That was a mistake. We’re realizing that mistake too late. And I’m worried that what we’re hearing from SDA and other elements will make it worse. [It’s] really not putting fear in the bones of our near-peer rivals.”

B-1Bs Arrive at RAF Fairford as Part of Bomber Task Force-Europe

Oct. 6, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The first two of four B-1B Lancer bombers and some 200 support personnel from the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron of Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, had arrived at RAF Fairford, England, as of Oct. 6 to begin a series of U.S. European Command and U.S. Strategic Command exercises with numerous NATO allies and partners across Europe.

The Bomber Task Force-Europe will practice integrating with ally and partner capabilities, using unfamiliar airfields, and flying in strategic areas including the Arctic, Baltics, and Black Sea region, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa Capt. Daniel R. de La Fé told Air Force Magazine.

“NATO nations … develop their skills and our skills to integrate and use these weapon systems to their maximum capacity,” de La Fé explained in a phone interview from USAFE-AFAFRICA headquarters at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Russia has increasingly made the Arctic a more contested region and strengthened its anti-access, area-denial capabilities in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, in the Baltics, and occupied Crimea, on the Black Sea, posing an increased threat to NATO’s eastern flank.

In the past year, de La Fé said regional partners have figured into American bomber exercises.

“That is to look at how we can employ our weapon systems that we don’t have in this theater, that we only host during rotations, and how we can employ them the most effectively with partners in these regions,” he said, while declining to name specific countries involved until the exercises are complete.

“Some partners have air forces; some partners have militaries that just supply personnel; and others have airfields that we use for our agile combat employment concept,” he said.

As a multirole strategic bomber, the B-1 has the capability of integrating with fighter jets in a different way because it flies faster and farther. It also holds guided and unguided payloads of conventional weapons, providing an array of ways it can integrate with partner capabilities.

During the deployment, the bombers will use ranges and participate in simulated events anywhere from the northern Arctic to the Horn of Africa.

The U.S. missions will also practice agile combat employment, or reducing reliance on large traditional bases and shifting to use of dispersed forward operating locations.

“A lot of our allies and partners across the theater want to engage with the B-1 bombers to ensure that they are capable of countering any adversarial threat within the region,” de La Fé said. “We’re focusing on a lot of those agile combat employment concepts that we’ve been building, and we’re looking at executing them throughout this mission.”

Austin Warns Troop Pay, National Security at Risk if US Defaults on Debt

Oct. 6, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

As time runs out for Congress to act and avoid an unprecedented debt default, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III joined the chorus of voices trying to pressure the legislature into action.

In a statement released Oct. 6, Austin warned that if the U.S. defaults on its debt, national security will suffer by undermining America’s economic strength.

On a more immediate level, Austin said he would be unable to ensure that military service members, Defense Department civilians, and contractors would be paid on time and in full.

“Benefits earned by and owed to 2.4 million military retirees and 400,000 survivors would also be at risk,” Austin added, saying that he hoped “as a nation, we will come together to ensure we meet our obligations, … without delay or disruption.”

Austin’s statement is the latest from a prominent figure in President Joe Biden’s administration to press lawmakers to take action by raising the debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the government could run out of cash around Oct. 18 if no action is taken—the Treasury Department has been using emergency “extraordinary measures” to stave off a default since a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling expired at the end of July.

Government officials and experts warn that if the U.S. does default on its debt, the economic consequences could be extreme.

Austin isn’t the only one warning of a debt default’s impact on the military. Also on Oct. 6, six former Defense Secretaries—William J. Perry, William S. Cohen, Leon E. Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Ashton B. Carter, and James N. Mattis—sent a letter to congressional leaders echoing Austin’s comments that a default would endanger troop pay and would harm America’s international standing, according to a report from Axios.

Right now, efforts to raise the debt ceiling are at the center of a political struggle between Republicans and Democrats, who are battling over President Biden’s massive proposed spending plan that would invest in infrastructure, environmental efforts, racial equality, and other topics.

In the afternoon of Oct. 6, Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered a deal to let Democrats raise the debt ceiling into December without filibustering the process. Several hours later, multiple media reports from Politico, CNN, and others indicated that Democrats would accept that short-term deal, seeming to temporarily stave off a default.

A similar process played out recently when the two parties engaged in a standoff over the fiscal 2022 budget, which almost led to a government shutdown that would have forced service members to work without pay and furloughed tens of thousands of DOD civilian workers.

With hours to spare before the Oct. 1 deadline, though, the two parties agreed to a continuing resolution that will last through Dec. 3. That move meant the Defense Department started the new fiscal year Oct. 1 under a continuing resolution for the 12th time in 13 years, according to the Government Accountability Office. Under a CR, the department cannot start new spending programs, which can lead to “repetitive administrative tasks or incremental planning,” Pentagon leaders told the GAO.

Even with the continuing resolution, however, a debt default could prevent the Treasury Department from paying the federal government’s bills, including troop pay.