The Air Force and JTT-NG: A Situational Awareness Match Made in Heaven

Sept. 1, 2021

Leonardo DRS has developed the world’s smallest and most capable integrated broadcast service (IBS) solution in what is the new Joint Tactical Terminal (JTT-NG). With more capability packed into a smaller form, the system represents the best long-term solution for the Air Force in terms of performance and IBS connectivity.

But how did we get here? Let’s move some years backward in time.

Early in the 21st century, a U.S. Air Force fighter jet is scrambled to support operations. During the mission briefing, the pilot speaks to commanders on the ground for a situational update and enters the coordinates of U.S. ground forces he has been tasked to support along with enemy targets in the immediate area.

It will be the last time the pilot is able to communicate directly with the U.S. unit on the ground or receive real-time situational data until reaching the target area. The information provided to the pilot during the long flight to the target was from a reporting chain made up of multiple communication waypoints. When the aircraft arrives on target, the pilot relies on voice communications and information relayed to him by a host of different lines of communication by way of multiple terminals.

While this continues to be a standard method of communication between air crews and ground forces for the U.S. military, it is increasingly becoming a more dangerous way to operate as adversaries gain better technology to strike faster and more accurately, quickly changing what is happening on the battlefield. When a pilot is unable to communicate in real-time with troops on the battlefield or receive updated operations information, confusion can occur, and lives can be lost.

The current network of disparate radios and terminals used by the U.S. military are primarily line-of-sight, single-channel systems able to perform only a single function at a time. The result is a costly collection of equipment with limited simultaneous functionality that also adds weight at the expense of ordnance and station time and puts a high-power burden on the aircraft. These systems cannot transmit critical data at long distances when airborne forwarders are not available or when operations are in or around mountains.

The needs in the air and on the ground change quickly, and many systems were rushed to the battlefield to meet requirements. Many of the technologies are still in use today and remain proprietary, hindering interoperability, causing mixed messages, and potentially slowing communications.

For aircraft with weight and power restrictions, this standard of business can present a multitude of problems. Relying on too many radios along with the associated weight and power requirements can become a platform-level problem, allowing installation of less capability on an aircraft. Air crews must decide which capability they can afford for a specific mission.

Leonardo DRS currently deploys its legacy tactical terminals on nearly all U.S. Air Force aircraft including special operation forces, bombers, tankers, and rescue aircraft.

Services trying to outfit their aircraft with the best gear are in a predicament because the technology is limited. It also can cost more than $300,000 per radio, with each plane requiring numerous radios.

Moreover, all these systems require modification, integration, test, logistics and sustainment support, and the price tag to integrate them and keep them updated and running significantly outweighs the acquisition costs.

Leonardo DRS has concentrated on solving this problem for the past 20 years. In July 2020, the U.S. Army chose the company’s next-generation Joint Tactical Terminal (JTT-NG) as the integrated broadcast service (IBS) solution for replacing aging systems.

As the world’s smallest and most capable IBS transceiver, the device ensures that military services keep pace with evolving technical advancements. With more capability packed into a smaller form, the JTT-NG represents the best long-term solution for the Air Force in terms of performance and IBS connectivity.

Here are just a few of the transceiver’s impressive vital statistics. Unparalleled in situational awareness, the JTT-NG can receive millions of threat, survivor and blue force tracking reports daily. It can receive, process and send over 800,000 messages per day. In short, the JTT-NG provides the most comprehensive near-real-time battlespace awareness to the warfighter.

JTT-NG is the only modular integrated broadcast service receive-and-transmit terminal available today. The system can be expanded to support future waveforms, guaranteeing it is equipped with the latest technology to counter the threats of tomorrow.

“This software-defined tactical terminal features open architecture and interoperable designs to support backward and forward compatibility and modular upgrades to incorporate additional functionality as it becomes available,” said Larry Ezell, Senior Vice President General Manager of the Leonardo DRS Airborne & Intelligence Systems business. “These benefits come at a fraction of the cost of legacy solutions.”

The JTT-NG represents a two-thirds reduction in size, weight, and power requirements. By significantly reducing SWaP and enhancing the terminal’s performance features, Leonardo DRS has developed the best way possible for air crews and ground troops to communicate more easily in real time.

In addition to solving these problems, the company offers the systems at a lower price than legacy solutions. More capable terminals that can perform multiple functions with less size, weight and power mean more “bang for a customer’s buck” and peace of mind.

The same communication capabilities required for pilots are also needed for maritime and ground operations. The JTT-NG will also enable use of the system in a command-and-control capacity by maneuver forces in tactical operation centers.

“Our tactical terminal solutions fulfill a critical need in the battlespace, providing actionable intelligence data via satellite communications that allow U.S. military and allied forces to identify targets with speed and accuracy while remaining out of harm’s way,” Ezell said.

Biden Defends Decision to Leave Americans in Afghanistan, Says Withdrawal Marks ‘End of an Era’ of Remaking Countries

Aug. 31, 2021 | By Amy Hudson and Abraham Mahshie

President Joe Biden spoke to the American people Aug. 31, one day after the final military flight left Kabul, to say that some 200 Americans remained in Afghanistan but that the military mission had ended and “over-the-horizon” capabilities will now fight terrorism in the country.

More than 100,000 Afghan and third-country civilians evacuated along with 5,500 Americans in 17 days of round-the-clock military flights, a “mission of mercy” Biden said was necessitated by President Donald Trump’s Feb. 29, 2020, agreement with the Taliban to vacate by May 1, 2021.

“Everything changed” by the time he took office, Biden said. “The Taliban onslaught was coming.”

Biden said he took “full responsibility” for the decision to pull out the final troops, even though that meant some 200 Americans were left behind. He said the U.S. government “reached out 19 times” since March, issuing warnings and offering to help them leave, but many were dual citizens and “longtime residents” of Afghanistan who initially “decided to stay because of their family roots” in the country.

“For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out,” Biden said, citing the diplomatic work ahead, albeit without an embassy in Kabul, to secure safe passage on commercial flights and via overland routes.

“Now, we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave,” he said. “The bottom line: 90 percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.”

The President said the “assumption” that more than 300,000 trained and equipped Afghan Armed Forces would secure the country was wrong. He thanked the military, American diplomats, and intelligence personnel for the operation to evacuate more than 120,000 total personnel since July.

“We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts felt was possible,” Biden said. “No nation. No nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today. The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.

Biden quoted U.S. Central Command boss Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., saying “this is the way the mission was designed,” parrying criticisms about the crowds frantically trying to reach the airport in the days leading up to the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal.

“It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack, and that’s what it did,” he said. “Leaving August the 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline. It was designed to save American lives.”

Biden blamed the chaotic evacuation on the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban, which he said did not require the Taliban to work with the Afghan government, but it did authorize “the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those who just took control of Afghanistan.”

“By the time I came to office, the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1 deadline that they had signed on to leave, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces. But if we stayed, all bets were off,” Biden said. “So we were left with the simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. That was the choice—the real choice: between leaving or escalating. I was not going to extend this forever war. And I was not extending a forever exit.”

Biden’s address from the White House dining room came hours after he witnessed the dignified return at Dover Air Force Base, Del., of the remains of the 13 service members killed in an Aug. 26 Islamic State-Khorasan attack outside a gate leading into the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. He also honored the 2,461 total fallen Americans and more than 20,000 injured during the 20-year conflict.

The President said the military would turn to great power competition with Russia and China while continuing to root out terrorists seeking safe haven elsewhere, such as the Middle East and Africa.

“There’s nothing China or Russia would rather have … in this competition than for the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan,” Biden said. “As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation the last two decades, we’ve got to learn from our mistakes. To me, there are two that are paramount. First, we must set missions with clear, achievable goals, not ones we will never reach. And second, we must stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interests of the United States of America.”

In declaring the end of the war in Afghanistan, Biden said an era of rebuilding countries had also come to an end. He acknowledged that the Afghanistan mission to root out terrorists and to stop future attacks on the homeland “morphed” into a nation-building effort aimed at creating a “democratic, cohesive, and united Afghanistan,” something he said hadn’t been accomplished over many centuries.

“This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan,” the President said. “It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.”

However, the President also issued a strong warning to terrorists everywhere, saying the U.S. does not need boots on the ground to enact revenge.

“For anyone who gets the wrong idea, let me say clearly, to those who wish America harm, to those who engage in terrorism against us or our allies, know this: The United States will never rest. We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and … you will pay the ultimate price.”

However, Biden’s speech did little to assuage critics, who blasted the decision to leave Americans behind.

“President Biden’s words today were hollow. One American left behind is one too many. The fact is President Biden abandoned Americans in Afghanistan—leaving them at the mercy of the Taliban and ISIS-K,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), lead Republican of the House Armed Services Committee, in a statement released following Biden’s address. “The President made a promise to the American people that he would stay until every American was out. Today, he shamefully tried to paint his failure as a success. This isn’t the end of a war—the terrorists still exist and they killed 13 American service members last week. They will not stop because the President arbitrarily picked a date.”

CSAF Becomes Just Third American Awarded Prestigious French Squadron Honor

Aug. 31, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The French Air and Space Force’s Fighter Squadron 2/4 Lafayette awarded Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. its insignia pin, making him only the third American to receive the high honor.

The award was announced by the Air Force on Aug. 30 after a July visit by Brown to the Saint-Dizier/Chaumont defense base in northeast France.

“The pin the escadrille presented to me is part of a 105-year, proud tradition, and this honor represents a strong bond between our two nations,” Brown said, according to an Air Force release.

The French Ministry of Defense told Air Force Magazine that Brown visited with Major General of Air and Space, Army Lt. Gen. Frédéric Parisot, on July 22. At the air base, Brown viewed the Lafayette fighter squadron and technical support squadron, participated in a flight simulator exercise, and viewed a medium-range SAMP Mamba ground-to-air missile defense system.

The Lafayette fighter squadron’s history dates to World War I, when it was known as the American Escadrille N124. At the time, it was manned with 38 American volunteers, mostly aviators, fighting under French command.

Brown is just the third American to receive the Lafayette squadron pin, joining President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Amelia Earhart.

A French press release noted the recent return of the French 4th Fighter Squadron, which had joined F-22 Raptors in commemoration of U.S. independence.

“This visit confirms the will of the two nations to strengthen bilateral cooperation,” the French release stated.

Brown was also presented with a painting by French artist Béatrice Roche Gardies of Eugene Bullard, who in August 1917 became the first African-American military pilot to fly in combat.

Bullard at the time was living in Paris and enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, earning the Croix de Guerre and reaching the rank of corporal. After retirement, Bullard fought again in World War II following the German invasion of France in May 1940.

Bullard was posthumously appointed second lieutenant in the United States Air Force on Sept. 14, 1994. The painting will be displayed at the Pentagon’s United States Air Force Art Collection for three years.

“I’m humbled to receive these honors,” Brown said in a press release. “Heroes like Eugene Bullard made incredible advancements to aviation and paved the way for so many.”

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

Aug. 31, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brookings Institute/YouTube

NRO Innovating Faster in Era of Great Power Space Competition

Aug. 31, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Davis has been managing the launches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aug. 30, 2021 | By John Dolan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After 20 Years of War, Afghanistan Withdrawal is Officially Complete

Aug. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hurricane Ida Spares Most Gulf Region Air Force Bases

Aug. 30, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aug. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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