Guarding Its Secrets, DOD Updates Rules for UAS Purchases

Sept. 13, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Defense Department on Sept. 10 announced new guidance to control which commercial unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) DOD organizations can acquire, with the intent of making it easier to buy approved commercial UASs of all sizes while ensuring such systems do not become a vector for data breaches to foreign adversaries such as China.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks signed the updated guidance Sept. 8, aligning policy with direction in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to impose new restrictions out of concern about Chinese-made UAS products.

The updated policy allows DOD to “take advantage of rapid technological advancements of the commercial market while concurrently reaffirming the department’s recognition that certain foreign-made commercial UAS pose a clear and present threat to U.S. national security,” DOD said in a release.

At the same time, the rules will enable the department to more freely acquire commercially developed UASs by better defining a process for clearing trusted systems to ensure the systems are in full compliance with DOD rules.

DOD indicated in July that UAS products from China’s Da Jiang Innovations posed a national security threat. “Mitigating the threats posed by small UAS, including Da Jiang Innovations (DJI) systems, remains a priority across the department,” the July 23 statement said.

Pentagon spokesperson Jessica Maxwell told Air Force Magazine on Sept. 13 that Hicks’s guidance requires the Pentagon’s chief information officer and the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment to sign off on foreign-made UAS purchases. “We are taking actions to safeguard sensitive information,” she explained. “This guidance allows the department to procure commercially-made UAS more clearly.”

In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security warned about the potential that DJI was sending data to its Chinese manufacturers. A year later, the Interior Department grounded its DJI drones. Now DOD is following suit to stop the potential theft of sensitive data. Maxwell could not confirm how or whether a data breach had occurred, but the new guidance will strictly regulate the buying of foreign-made systems.

Among President Trump’s final executive orders was one encouraging the purchase of American-made UASs and underscoring the threat posed by software and electronic components from China.

Maxwell said Hicks’s guidance builds on that Executive Order and takes advantage of innovation in the private sector.

China’s Expedited ICBM Program Has Been a Top US Secret, Shows Need for Speed, Hyten Says

Sept. 13, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

“Unprecedented nuclear modernization” by China that is “now going public” has been underway for years but was a tightly held secret, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. John E. Hyten said in an interview with the Brookings Institution streamed Sept. 13. The pace of the program is his top concern, he said.

Hyten said he saw China’s missile buildup underway when he was head of U.S. Strategic Command, from 2016 to 2019, but “it was in very classified channels and you couldn’t talk about it.” Now, “commercial imagery” in the press has uncloaked the scale of China’s program. Hyten did not say why knowledge of China’s buildup was so closely guarded, but such secrecy usually has to do with the sources and methods of intelligence.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said in August the implications of China’s missile program could be “catastrophic” if the Air Force doesn’t change itself fast enough to keep pace with the threat. The revelations of the missile building campaign “helps to validate what we’ve been talking about, why we need” the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent missile, the B-21 bomber, and Long-Range Stand Off missile, Brown said.

China is building “hundreds and hundreds of fixed silos” to hold intercontinental ballistic missiles, Hyten told Brookings host Michael O’Hanlon, “and it seems like, every couple of weeks, more pictures are coming in of more silos, and by the way, there’s no limits on what China can put in those silos.”

The U.S. and Russia are limited to 1,550 nuclear weapons under the New START treaty, Hyten said, but for China, “there’s no limit. They could put 10 re-entry vehicles on every one of those ICBMs if they wanted to—there’s nothing to limit that ability,” Hyten said.

Hyten compared “how fast they’re building these silos” with “the GBSD program, saying, even “if everything goes right, we’ll have 400 new silos with an initial operational capability in 2030, full operational capability [in] 2035. It’s going to take us 10, 15 years to modernize 400 silos that already exist. China’s building that many, basically, overnight.” The “speed of that difference … is what really concerns me the most.” Given China’s declaration of a “no first use” nuclear weapons policy, “You have to ask yourself, why are they building that enormous, enormous nuclear capability, faster than anybody in the world?”

The 2018 National Defense Strategy “started moving us toward the challenge we’re going to face with China,” ending an uncertain period in which the U.S. effectively had no defense strategy. But “the downside is, we’re still moving unbelievably slow, unbelievably slow. We’re so bureaucratic and risk-averse,” Hyten lamented. Without a stated strategy of competing with peer nations, “you can have a risk-averse strategy and you can go slow. But when you have a competitor like China—and Russia—that can move fast, you have to be able to move fast, as well. And we still move way too slow.”

While Hyten said China is America’s pacing military threat, Russia “cannot be discounted.” He noted that Russia announced its nuclear modernization plan in 2006 and it has followed through on it, and the upgraded nuclear weapons “are not … for Chechen rebels.” But China is a “very different competitor, because of the sheer size of their economy.”

He’s also concerned that the U.S. and China are “not talking to each other a lot,” even though they presumably have a common goal of avoiding all-out war.

The assumptions underlying the Joint Warfighting Concept are largely classified, Hyten said, and he declined to answer questions about America’s vulnerabilities and whether it’s stronger on defense or offense.

However, “We need to aggregate capabilities in order to integrate our fires. And we need to disaggregate our capabilities in order to survive and operate,” he said, adding, “We need to do that very quickly, in all domains, with all services at the same time.” Doing so will create a “huge problem” for America’s adversaries.

The services have been talking about “aggregating fires” through joint all-domain command and control, while “disaggregating capabilities” was a reference to dispersing U.S. military assets to compound the problem of targeting “large formations at fixed sites,” similar to the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment operating concept. Massing forces at fixed locations “is not good,” he observed.

He also said JADC2 is not simply about “protecting yourself,” but very much an offensive tool about “denying the adversary the same thing. So you have to put all those pieces together … At the unclassified level, I’ll stop there.”

Among his top frustrations, Hyten said he issued a clarion call to create a resilient space architecture more than six years ago, when he was at Air Force Space Command. He complained that America’s satellites are “a bunch of fat, juicy targets” because so much depends on them for communications, navigation, and sensing.

“Space Force has developed the concepts of what this new architecture is going to be, but we have not moved on that path,” Hyten said. The “same challenges” that were in the budget 10 years ago “are the same challenges … in the budget today,” he said.

However, “the good news is,” because of strong investment in military space, “we just have exquisite, enormous advantages over an adversary for the foreseeable future.” Whether that’s “five years or 10 years, I can’t tell you, but as fast as China is going, probably on the lesser side,” Hyten said.

When he was at STRATCOM, he did an analysis of the U.S. constellation’s vulnerability to kinetic attack, “And I became very, very confident that we could survive any threat that existed.” But now, given the pace of China’s modernization, it could “deny that,” he said.

The U.S. defense top line needs to grow at 3 percent to 5 percent real growth per year “if we keep doing business the way we have,” he said. However, if the U.S. military is allowed to divest systems that are no longer relevant—Hyten dislikes the term “legacy”—then a $700 billion budget “should be enough” for “a pretty darn good defense.”

Doing business differently can be as simple as not spending months on continuing resolutions, when contractors are on the meter and work is not getting done because the flow of money and new starts has been interrupted, Hyten said.

DOD is Accepting Inquiries for Civilian Advisory Board Roles

Sept. 13, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

Subject-matter experts can begin to inquire with the appropriate Biden administration officials about serving on the Defense Department’s volunteer federal advisory boards.

Some past members whose terms were ended early in February may be invited to rejoin.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ended the terms of “several hundred” members early—all those within his purview—emptying many of the boards in a purge unlike any other. Pentagon officials cited Austin’s desire for a “zero-based review” of all the boards so he could “get his arms around” their utility and even whether the 42 boards—some with subcommittees to boot—might all be reduced to “a single cross-functional advisory committee.”

Instead, his office announced Sept. 2 that 16 of the 42 boards have passed the review so far and that staff have restarted operations. DOD spokesperson Air Force Lt. Col. Uriah L. Orland confirmed to Air Force Magazine on Sept. 13 that people who are interested in board service can contact the board’s sponsor. Membership factors may vary according to legal requirements or a sponsor’s guidance.

“For the 16 boards that were announced on Sept. 2, the time will vary by board on how long it takes to repopulate membership,” Orland said. The DOD sponsors “will select and recommend individuals for appointment consideration.” These may include “previously appointed individuals, new individuals, or any combination as appropriate based on the mission/scope of the board and its membership requirements.”

Austin’s office has said he and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks will approve all members.

Pentagon staff began the reviews when many of the board’s official DOD sponsors, Biden administration political appointees, had not yet been named to their jobs. The reviews are either complete, as in the case of the 16, or in the final stages.

“We will have additional announcements as the zero-based reviews for each are completed,” Orland said. At a defense conference Sept. 8, Hicks reportedly said she hoped all 42 boards would be active again by the end of 2021.

At the time of the members’ terms being ended, the Pentagon did not plan to consult any members during the review process:

“Former board members are private citizens and are no longer affiliated with DOD,” said DOD spokesperson Susan Gough in an emailed reply to Air Force Magazine. “Sponsors should not be talking with former board members in an official capacity as they are now private citizens. A private citizen seldom comments on internal DOD reviews or deliberations unless the DOD invites or appoints the individual to serve in an advisory role.”

In the press briefing announcing the zero-based review Feb. 2, anonymous Pentagon officials said last-minute Trump administration appointees were another concern.

Members of DOD advisory boards volunteer to serve one-year terms with the possibility of having their terms renewed three times for a total of four years.

In a Pentagon press briefing Sept. 2, DOD Press Secretary John F. Kirby said the “boards and committees have been and will continue to be a valuable resource as we defend the nation, succeed through teamwork, and take care of our people,” according to the official transcript. “The Secretary looks forward to working with many of these bodies personally and expects other Department officials to do the same.”

The 16 boards Austin authorized to continue, and the DOD sponsor to contact for those interested in volunteering:

Defense Business Board—Hicks
Defense Policy Board—Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl
Defense Health Board—Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gilbert R. Cisneros Jr
Department of Defense Board of Actuaries—Cisneros
Department of Defense Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care Board of Actuaries—Cisneros
Uniform Formulary Beneficiary Advisory Panel—Cisneros
Department of Defense Wage Committee—Cisneros
Defense Science Board—Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu
Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces—General Counsel of the Department of Defense Caroline D. Krass Inland
Waterways Users Board—Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth
Board on Coastal Engineering Research—Wormuth
Army Science Board—Wormuth
Marine Corps University Board of Visitor—Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro
Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board—Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall
U.S. Strategic Command Strategic Advisory Group—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley

North Korea’s Launch of Nuclear-capable Cruise Missile a ‘Threat’ to the Region, Says Pentagon

Sept. 13, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The state news agency of North Korea confirmed the successful tests Sept. 11-12 of long-range cruise missiles it claims can carry a nuclear warhead, prompting the Pentagon to condemn the north’s military program.

“The activity itself certainly highlights the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] continued focus on developing its military program and the threats that it continues to pose to its neighbors and the international community,” Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said at a Sept. 13 press briefing.

Kirby said his comments were based on press reports and were not a Defense Department confirmation that the tests took place.

The official North Korean news release called the long-range cruise missile a “strategic weapon,” necessary for deterrence, and said it hit targets 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away. Although that’s far from a threat to the U.S. homeland, it is easily within reach of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region, especially those in South Korea and Japan.

It is unclear whether United Nations sanctions on North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs would prohibit the types of tests that took place over the weekend.

Kirby said cruise missiles typically travel shorter distances with a smaller payload than longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles that U.S. missile defense systems are prepared to intercept from North Korea.

“A ballistic missile can often travel much longer distances at greater speeds than a cruise missile,” he said.

However, cruise missiles can be a powerful threat to regional interests.

“They can be much more precise in their targeting because they’re multi-directional,” Kirby said. “A cruise missile basically flies like an airplane, an un-piloted airplane, and so it can zig, it can zag, it can can do all kinds of different maneuvers before it hits its target.”

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command released a statement following the alleged DPRK test Sept. 12 saying it would consult with allies and partners and continue to monitor the situation.

“The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad,” the statement read.

New Rules to Attend AFA Conference: Proof of Vaccination or Negative COVID Test Now Required

Sept. 13, 2021 | By Scott King

Attendees to the Air Force Association’s 2021 Air, Space & Cyber Conference must present proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test taken within the prior three days to attend the conference in person Sept. 20-22.

After two consecutive virtual conferences, AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference returns next week live and in-person at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md. In addition to the vaccination or test mandate, masks must be worn indoors during the conference, except while eating or drinking, according to Prince George’s County, Md., rules.

Department of Air Force personnel, both military and civilian, are only authorized to attend in person if they are fully vaccinated. Other attendees may get around the vaccination requirement by testing negative for COVID-19 within three days of attendance and showing the results of that test on arrival.

Regardless, to obtain a badge, all attendees must either:

Show proof of vaccination, such as a vaccine card or digital vaccine passport, indicating the attendee is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or
For non-DAF attendees only, show proof of a negative test result from a COVID-19 test obtained within three days of arrival at the conference venue

“Leading in the midst of a pandemic is a challenge to say the least,” wrote AFA Chairman of the Board Gerald Murray, former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force; and AFA President retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright in a letter to members. “We are fortunate that our Air and Space Forces are in such capable hands. While we all would like to put away the masks and stop talking about pandemic statistics, the reality is the disease continues to spread and the risks remain high. Taking prudent measures such as these are necessary precautions to enable face-to-face engagement, the hallmark of a successful conference.”

Conference attendees should bring documentation with them, such as a printed or digital vaccine passport. No conference badges will be printed without such proof. “We recognize that this may slow down our process and that it may mean longer waiting times,” said AFA President Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright. “But we also know that inconvenience is a small price to pay to get back to in-person events.”

He urged attendees to go to the conference center on Saturday or Sunday to get badges before the crush of opening day. “If you go early, you can beat the crowds and get a jump on the whole event,” Wright said. “The earlier you come, the faster the process will be.”

AFA’s Air, Space, & Cyber Conference is the leading professional development event for Air Force and Space Force officers, enlisted members, civilians, veterans, and defense industry leaders and representatives. The ASC conference brings together top Air Force and Space Force leadership, industry experts, and government officials to discuss challenges facing the aerospace and cyber communities today and in the future.

The theme for this year’s event is “Air and Space Leadership for our Nation—Today and Tomorrow.”

Keynote speakers include Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, and Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines Holdings Inc., among others.

A livestream option will be available, but only for those who register to attend virtually. It is not too late to register for either the in-person or virtual option.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Tech. Sgt. Justin Bennett

Sept. 13, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Tech. Sgt. Justin Bennett an anti-terrorism program manager at RAF Lakenheath, U.K.

Bennett superbly managed the United Kingdom’s largest anti-terrorism program by directly contributing to 42 force protection projects valued at over $22 million, while being the wing’s focal point for anti-terrorism measures for the Chief of Staff’s initiative of accelerating change through agile combat employment.

His actions fused the wing’s first agile combat employment mission with United States allies, enabling 4,700 sorties for U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa’s largest fighter wing.

Bennett’s commitment to excellence, personally and professionally, led to his selection by his peers to be the wing’s 5/6 vice president. A 5/6 council is a group that supports and mentors junior enlisted Airmen. In this role, Bennett mentored 2,000 peers and piloted six professional development courses while completing 18 credit hours to finalize his master’s degree in intelligence studies.

He also guided three Air Force site activation task forces by coordinating 54 anti-terrorism security designs to construct a $3 billion F-35 campus for the arrival of EUCOM’s first fifth-generation aircraft, which culminated in his selection as the Air Force’s security forces support staff noncommissioned officer of the year.

“In only a couple of years he’s been a staff sergeant, achieved technical sergeant on his first try, and now he’s a master sergeant select,” said Alex Higdon, 48th Security Forces Squadron anti-terrorism officer chief, in a USAF release. “He’s the embodiment of success professionally, and he also grows Airmen personally and professionally, by helping them out in terms of their personal life. He’s the go-to guy if you want to get an answer, and get it quickly.”

2021 Outstanding Airmen of the Year honoree Tech. Sergeant Justin Bennett. USAF

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Tech. Sgt. Christopher Bennett

Sept. 10, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Tech. Sgt. Christopher Bennett from the 81st Training Group at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.

Bennett excelled as a deployed combat airspace manager for a special operations detachment in direct support of Operation Inherent Resolve. He fused conventional and special operations tenets while integrating airpower assets into 10 international strike packages.

Bennett sterilized tactical airspace for 29 special operations raids while developing anti-drone weapon employment safety procedures. Additionally, he secured 3,100 commercial flights through hostile airspace from Turkish and Russian air strikes.

Bennett’s efforts enabled and enhanced kinetic, non-kinetic, and intelligence collection operations throughout Iraq and Syria, which led to the capture of 14 high-value targets and eliminated 94 enemy combatants.

He was awarded the Army’s combat action badge for his role in the coalition preparation and response to the Iranian missile attack on United States bases in Iraq, culminating in a Bronze Star Medal nomination. He received presidential list honors while working on his advanced degree, completed a second Community College of the Air Force degree in Instructor of Technology and Military Science, and garnered the John L. Levitow award upon graduation from the noncommissioned officer academy.

2021 Outstanding Airmen of the Year honoree Tech. Sergeant Christopher Bennett excelled as a deployed combat airspace manager for a special operations detachment in direct support of Operation Inherent Resolve. Air Force photo.

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

GE Says New Engine for F-35 Possible by 2027, but Not on STOVL Version

Sept. 10, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Engine makers should be able to meet House defense policy bill language calling for a new F-35 powerplant based on the Adaptive Engine Transition Program by 2027, but only for the conventional takeoff versions, a GE Aviation executive said.

“We would be eager to step up to the challenge to meet the 2027 deadline” that the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act included, David Tweedie, general manager for advanced combat systems at GE Aviation, said in a Sept. 10 interview, adding that doing so is “certainly within the art of the possible.”

He said, “We were encouraged by both the direction [to the Joint Program Office] to provide a transition plan, as well as authorization for an additional $257 million of funding above the President’s Budget request, so we are encouraged on all those counts.”

After $4 billion in investment by the Air Force, through several successive technology programs, GE is in the final stages of testing its XA100 engine and Pratt & Whitney is also testing its XA101. The AETP program is a risk-reduction effort designed to make sure the technology is available if the Air Force wants to move on to a new powerplant for its fighters. Tweedie said the plan was always to develop an engine that could be applied to the F-35 at midlife, and to other, future aircraft, but not as a retrofit to the F-15, F-16, or F-22. The AETP engines were “optimized to the F-35 … from the beginning,” he said.

However, the AETP engine will not be able to power the F-35B, the short takeoff/vertical landing version of the Lightning II, Tweedie said.

While “we think we have a very competitive offering for the F-35A and the F-35C, … we did not design the AETP engine to integrate with the F-35B. It was beyond the scope of what we set out to do,” he said. While Tweedie did not comment on how hard it would be to adapt AETP engines to this application, he did say it would be “beyond the budget and timeframe” set by the House to accomplish.

Pratt & Whitney, which makes the F135 engine that powers the Joint Strike Fighter, argues that putting a new engine in the jet would cost $40 billion more over the remaining expected 50-year life of the program, chiefly in sustainment costs, because of the need to develop and maintain at least two engine logistics enterprises while continuing with the F135 for the F-35B. Pratt & Whitney says it can make modifications to its F135 that would be sufficient to meet all the Joint Strike Fighter’s future power and thrust needs, with margin; and that its AETP could not be adapted to the F-35, as it “will not fit” that aircraft’s engine space.

The AETP engines were developed because the Air Force recognized that engine technology of the 1990s had gone about as far as possible, and engineers were struggling hard to squeeze even a percentage point or two more performance out of it. The AETP engines add a third airstream to the traditional turbofan cycle, giving it better thrust and providing more air for cooling, while making it more fuel efficient in cruise.

The F-35 JPO does not have an engine roadmap for integration of a new powerplant in the jet, but creating one is likely to be on the agenda of the next top-level meeting of F-35 partners and users. The JPO has not committed to using AETP technology in the fighter.

“The … AETP is in the very early stages of development and is not currently an F-35 requirement,” an F-35 JPO spokeswoman said. The Joint Program Office is “working with the AETP program office and our industry partners to evaluate this new engine technology for possible use in the F-35.”

GE announced on Sept. 7 that it has begun testing the second all-up example of its XA100 AETP engine at its Evendale, Ohio, plant, which Tweedie said would likely be a “two-month effort, plus or minus.” The company says its version of the engine surpasses the F135 by 10 percent in thrust and 25 percent in fuel efficiency, along with a “significant reduction in carbon emissions.”

GE claims its XA100 engine has more thrust and fuel efficiency than the F-35’s current engine, the F135 from Pratt & Whitney. GE courtesy photo.

After GE has wrung out the XA100 at Evendale, it will be transferred to the Air Force for testing at Arnold Engineering Development Center, Tenn., where there is more sophisticated equipment that is only available to the Air Force.

It’s unclear how exactly the program will advance beyond this final stage; Tweedie said the contractors are “looking forward to what’s in the fiscal ‘23” budget request, as the 2022 version did not include out-years spending plans. “We have not seen a … finalized Air Force acquisition strategy,” he said.

But in a Sept. 7 Defense News conference, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said it’s important to press on with it, even if it isn’t used in the F-35.

“You’ve got to continue the R&D [research and development] … so that you have options in the future,” Brown said. “If we stop the R&D on this, we basically shut ourselves off from having an option to go forward.”

GE would “need to see something in the ’23 budget to keep this momentum going,” Tweedie said of Brown’s comments, paraphrasing Brown as saying, “’You can’t stop.’ And that’s true of any major development effort. There’s a lot of cycle time lost if you bring that effort to a complete halt.”

The Air Force has had superior fighter engine technology for generations, Tweedie said, and “10 years ago, the Air Force came to industry and said, ‘We need to earn that again; we need the next generational leap in technology.” The AETP program, and other such projects before it, were focused on being “ready to go launch that next full-scale engineering and manufacturing development program … We’ve met the Air Force’s objective to burn that risk down.”

Lockheed Martin, builder of the F-35 fighter, has worked with both GE and Pratt & Whitney throughout the AETP program to ensure that what they were developing would fit in the F-35; that “access panels, and all the other things” needed for service and maintenance would line up, Tweedie said. Lockheed Martin “has been an active participant in this program from Day 1,” and the resulting powerplants should, with development, “fit seamlessly” into the jet.

20 Years Later: Reflections and Lessons from a General Who Smelled the Smoke on 9/11

Sept. 10, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The building shook for only an instant and the soot from the smoke was clean within 48 hours, retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula recalled two decades after the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. But America’s national security priorities had been lost in the fog of war for a generation. Only now is strategy again aligning with threat.

An externally focused defense strategy turned to the homeland after the al-Qaida attacks, consolidating intelligence and protecting the nation against another terrorist attack, but mission creep led to strategic errors that would set the nation behind adversaries, said Deptula, now the dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, in an interview with Air Force Magazine as he reflected on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, then Maj. Gen. Deptula was dressed in his blues sitting at his Pentagon office at 5D156. He was director of the Air Force 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review. After the attack, he would be called in to design the air response against the Taliban, putting him at the center of an evolving assessment of global terrorist targets against an evasive enemy, hampered by burdensome restrictions and patchy intelligence.

Deptula was two corridors down from where American Airlines Flight 77 would strike the west wall of the Pentagon.

“I’m sitting at my desk, and I get a call from my deputy, Brig. Gen. Ron Bath… He said, ‘Hey, General Deptula, turn on the TV,’” Deptula recalled.

American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.

“It was just a beautiful day, up and down the East Coast. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky; crisp, wonderful, blue sky day,” Deptula recalled, wondering how a pilot could hit the building.

“Then, as I’m watching, wham! Here comes the second, and immediately, everyone who did watch it, when they saw the second airplane, it’s like, ‘This isn’t an accident,’” he said.

“This is an intentional attack,” he continued. “And the next thought that went through my mind, I’ll always remember this as well: ‘You know, the Pentagon would make a logical third target.’”

Dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies now-retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula pictured in his Pentagon office in 2001. Courtesy of David A. Deptula.

The Building Shook for an Instant

Thirty-four minutes after Deptula watched American Airlines Flight 175 crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, he heard a muffled explosion and felt a momentary quake.

The Pentagon had been hit by American Airlines Flight 77.

“The building shook, just for an instant,” Deptula recalled, ascertaining what had just happened. “The alarms went off almost immediately.”

The two-star directed staff to account for everyone in his division and once the task was complete, he dismissed them for the day. He himself was dismissed while critical staff, including the Joint Chiefs, assembled at the alternate command center at Bolling Air Force Base, now Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling, in Southeast Washington, D.C.

The remainder of the afternoon was a hectic effort to get home: Walking past closed Pentagon exits, observing smoke and fire from across the inner courtyard, unable to reach his wife with downed cell service. Finally, Deptula walked out the Pentagon river entrance and across the street to the marina, where he watched news reports on a small portable TV and conducted an interview with Washington Post reporters while waiting for a lift home.

“One of the biggest things I noticed was the quiet, the silence,” he recalled. “It was quiet. Black smoke billowing over the other side of the Pentagon, the opposite side from the river entrance, and then here are these two F-16s orbiting overhead. That’s why I say, ‘This was surreal. It’s quiet. The Pentagon’s on fire, two Air Force F-16s doing combat air patrol over Washington, D.C. Just eerie.’”

Deptula went into work at the damaged and soot-covered Pentagon the following day, only to be sent home until the intact part of the structure could be cleaned and secured.

Returning to work on the Air Force QDR seemed distant with the nation poised to strike back at an as-yet undefined enemy.

“The thing that you begin to think about is, ‘Who’s responsible for this? Where are they located? What are the options for response?’” Deptula recalled. He had already begun to share his operations experience as principal attack planner for Desert Storm in the Pentagon’s Checkmate wargaming center. There, he heard some of the ideas under consideration by U.S. Central Command contingency planning cells.

Then, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper called Deptula into his office.

“‘I just got a call from Chuck Wald, the 9th Air Force Commander,” Deptula recalled Jumper saying. “‘He’d like you to deploy to Southwest Asia to become the commander of the [U.S. Air Forces] Central Combined Air and Space Operations Center to design the response, plan the response, and help in the execution of our response. Do you want to go?”

Striking Back at the Taliban

Deptula settled into his new role at Prince Sultan Air Base, southwest of the Saudi capital of Riyadh, within days of the 9/11 attacks. He would be responsible for designing the initial attacks on the Taliban and al Qaeda that commenced on Oct. 7, 2001.

Many strategic options were on the table from a cover for invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein to launching simultaneous counter-terrorism activities globally. As intelligence came in, options were refined. At one point, the United States even proposed working together with the Taliban.

“Very early on, we offered the Taliban the option to work with us to help us kick out al-Qaida,” Deptula said. “Then it became evident that they did not want that. Then we kind of raised the stakes in the context of, ‘Well, if you’re not going to do that, then you are liable for protecting our adversary and will come under attack as well.’”

CENTCOM planners wanted to assure that the people of Afghanistan knew this was not an attack on them, but on the Taliban who were harboring al-Qaida.

But limitations were plentiful, and strategic errors ensued.

“We could not drop a bomb in Afghanistan without approval of the four-star commander of Central Command, which was ridiculous,” Deptula remembered. Infrastructure was off limits.

The command wanted roadways and lines of communication to be in place to move humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

The restriction led to one of “the most grievous strategic errors” of the war, Deptula recalled, allowing Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the senior most Taliban leadership to enter a compound in Kandahar and not strike.

“This is like manna from heaven to combat planners because I can take out the senior Taliban leadership and all of their senior staff on the first night of the war,” Deptula remembered. “I’m talking to the commander of the Predator outfit going, ‘What the hell is going on? Why is this taking so long to get approval?’”

Approval did not come. Concerns about mud huts within the collateral damage circle prevented the strike.

Nonetheless, the coordination of airpower with the “light touch” of special operations forces and the indigenous forces of the Northern Alliance led to the collapse of the Taliban government by December.

“We’d already accomplished our critical U.S. national security objectives in Afghanistan,” Deptula said, noting his own departure in mid-November.

“We’d removed the Taliban from power. We had worked to assist a government friendly to the United States and our interests in their place, and we’d eliminated the al-Qaida terrorist training camps inside Afghanistan,” he said. “What we should have done was [say], ‘See you later, have a nice life. If you do it again, we’ll be back.’”

‘Unobtainium’ Mission Creep

The mission in Afghanistan had been accomplished even before Central Command finished deploying its land forces. Instead of fighting, the military took a non-military role, Deptula assessed.

“By the time they got into theater, they realized, ‘OK, the Taliban are gone. Friendly government. Al Qaeda is gone. Now, what do we do?’” he said. “So, in the largest example of mission creep, they sought to win hearts and minds and change a collection of sixth-century tribes into a modern Jeffersonian democracy, which is what we’ve been trying to do for the last 20 years. But it’s unobtainium. Nor is it a military mission or role.”

Institutional equities butted heads, Deptula opined, as the Army fought to “prove their relevancy” in the wake of a decade of swift air successes that preceded 9/11, from Bosnia to the Gulf War. The investment and commitment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan would bog down the American military for two decades while adversaries like China invested in military modernization.

“9/11 happened. And it had an enormous strategic effect on the government and the military of the United States,” Deptula offered.

America’s defenses had always been faced externally. Important changes were made. The Department of Homeland Security was stood up, the Intelligence Community was united under the Director of National Intelligence and the Transportation Security Administration was established.

“We are more attuned to terrorism as a critical national security threat than we ever have been before,” Deptula said.

In Afghanistan, changes in military strategy hampered the American force.

“When we shifted from a strategy of counterterrorism to one of counterinsurgency, we shifted from a set of objectives that were in the U.S. critical national security interest to a set of objectives that were not, and that’s very frustrating,” Deptula said. “We shouldn’t get counterterrorism confused with counterinsurgency and getting involved with nation building and trying to change other nations into our image.”

The United States neglected future threats by continuing to push for total success in Afghanistan, he said.

“As the world’s sole superpower, we need to be able to be prepared to deter, and if necessary, defeat threats across the spectrum of conflict, from humanitarian assistance all the way up to global thermonuclear war,” Deptula said. “The pendulum swung too far.”