Last US Troops Leave Bagram After Nearly 20 Years, Full Afghanistan Withdrawal Slated for August

July 2, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie and Brian W. Everstine

Looters were left to enter and take what remained of Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan after U.S. forces withdrew July 1 without fanfare or an official announcement.

“The silence was deafening,” Florida Congressman and Afghan war veteran Rep. Mike Waltz told Air Force Magazine on July 2, describing his thoughts when he heard the news that America’s most important base in Afghanistan has been fully vacated.

“The thing that strikes me was that this was the first place that you came every deployment. That was the last place that you saw when you left to go home,” said the former Green Beret, who recalled attending ramp ceremonies at Bagram to view flag-draped coffins loaded on Air Force transports to go home.

“It’s just really, I think, symbolic and emotional for a lot of people,” he added. “Not even an official announcement, nothing. It just is, you know, like I said, closed with a whimper, that was really, just left me with very mixed emotions.”

The sprawling base served as the hub for American operations for about 20 years, hosting hundreds of thousands of American troops and scores of USAF combat deployments. The base grew to 30 square miles, its runway was 12,000 feet long, and it had more than 110 revetments and a village that had hosted fast food restaurants and other amenities for troops.

The Air Force’s 455th Air Expeditionary Wing oversaw the base, first activating in April 2002 with A-10s beginning to fly from Bagram in the early months of the war. Now, with no combat aircraft based in the country, American military leaders say air support will be provided from “over the horizon.” Pentagon leaders have said that means MQ-9 Reaper missions departing from the Persian Gulf until the U.S. government identifies a closer basing option.

Afghanistan Withdrawal Will be Complete by August

As of June 28, the Defense Department had flown out 896 C-17 loads of equipment from Afghanistan, largely from Bagram. The base is the seventh facility to be handed over to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

The local district administrator for Bagram told The Associated Press that the last U.S. forces left the base overnight and did not coordinate with local officials, and as a result looters were able to enter the base early July 2.

The withdrawal from Bagram is a major step in the total retrograde from Afghanistan, which President Joe Biden said in April would be completed by Sept. 11, though the Pentagon indicated July 2 that full withdrawal will wrap up by the end of August.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met with the defense minister of Uzbekistan on July 1 and with his counterpart from Tajikistan on July 2. At both meetings, officials discussed the possibility of a U.S. basing agreement on Afghanistan’s northern border, without which the Afghanistan counterterrorism mission requires a four-hour commute each way from Gulf bases.

Taliban Make Advances

As American forces vacated Bagram, so, too, did close air support to the Afghan Armed Forces fighting the Taliban.

In recent weeks, security experts say the loss of U.S. air support has allowed the Taliban to make advances across the country. In his visit to Washington, D.C., on June 25, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani implored American leaders for continued close air support through the summer fighting season into September, Waltz said.

“It was critical to Afghan security forces because that’s where the majority of our close air support came from,” said Waltz, who had dinner with Ghani during his visit to the capital.

“The bottom line from the president of Afghanistan was that air power was key to stem the Taliban advances,” he added. “The Taliban are out in the open now, and he was confident their momentum could be stopped with continued air power.”

In advance of the withdrawal, Austin ordered B-52s to deploy to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, and the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower offshore to provide air support for U.S. troops and allies as they exited the country. Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby confirmed July 2 that with the closure of Bagram “strike capabilities … are no longer in Afghanistan,” though “some aviation elements” remain in Kabul.

Kirby also said command authority for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan will transition in the coming weeks from Gen. Austin S. Miller to commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr.

Additionally, Austin approved the creation of U.S. Forces Afghanistan-Forward with Rear Adm. Peter G. Vasely taking command. Vasely, currently the commander of Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan, will be responsible for protection of the U.S. Embassy and other American personnel in Kabul. Also, Brig. Gen. Curtis A. Buzzard, currently the director of the Defense Security Cooperation Management Office-Afghanistan, will administer funding and other logistical support to the Afghan military from Qatar, Kirby said.

The Pentagon has emphasized that counterterrorism capabilities will still be conducted from “over the horizon,” but Waltz has his doubts.

“I think the over the horizon is a talking point, and it is a little bit of a pipe dream,” Waltz said. “The reality without local allies on the ground, without local intelligence on the ground, without a base in country, the distances involved—or, in the region for that matter—the distances involved from the Gulf makes it incredibly complicated.”

Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Commission Issues Recommendations, Austin Directs Reforms

July 2, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon’s independent review commission on sexual assault in the military released its report July 2, making 82 recommendations that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III indicated he would support “wherever possible with adjustments made to ensure effective implementation.”

The IRC, which primarily focused its recommendations on the four areas of accountability, prevention, climate and culture, and victim support and care, said it found that “there is a wide chasm” between what commanders think is happening under them and what junior enlisted service members say they actually experience.

“As a result, trust has been broken between commanders and the service members under their charge and care,” the IRC’s report states.

And while service leaders have repeatedly emphasized a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual harassment and assault, “zero tolerance is actually 100 percent tolerance,” one NCO told the IRC.

In addition to a lack of trust, the IRC determined that “the military justice system is not equipped to properly respond to special victim crimes”; there are “critical deficiencies” in the department’s workforce to address the problem; outdated social norms persist among service members; and there is a lack of data about perpetration, among other problems.

“There is a direct link between unhealthy command climates and mission failure. The military’s problem with sexual harassment and sexual assault is proof that too many small units have unhealthy command climates,” the report states.

More than a dozen of the IRC’s recommendations focused on the military justice system, including a push to amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice so that legal decisions about the prosecution of special victim crimes fall outside the chain of command.

Austin has already agreed with that recommendation, and on July 2, he directed Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks, in a memo, to develop a 60-day “roadmap” for implementing that change. He also directed her to make a plan for adding sexual harassment as an offense in the UCMJ and for creating dedicated offices under the Secretary of each service to handle the prosecution of special victim crimes, which include domestic violence, child abuse, and retaliation from the chain of command.

The IRC’s other proposed changes for the military justice system include the hiring of independent, trained investigators for sexual harassment, mandatory initiation of involuntary separation for all substantiated complaints, billets for military justice personnel handling special victim crimes, Military Protective Orders for victims of sexual assault and related offenses, and expedited processing of proposed executive orders related to special victim crimes.

Many of the other recommendations focus on the DOD updating, modernizing, and standardizing its policies across services, educating service members and commanders on those new policies to foster an improved culture, gathering more data, and conducting research and implementing programs to improve prevention.

In particular, the Pentagon should “use qualitative data to select, develop, and evaluate the right leaders for command positions,” the IRC wrote, citing data from a 2018 survey that showed roughly half of those who reported sexual harassment to their commanders were “encouraged to drop the issue.” In addition, the IRC recommended a “meaningful narrative section” in performance evaluations for officers and NCOs.

Austin, in his memo also released July 2, focused his immediate efforts on the commission’s accountability recommendations. In addition to the proposed changes to the UCMJ, he directed service leaders to “standardize all non-judicial punishments,” to establish a separation process for substantiated sexual harassment complaints, and to professionalize career tracks for lawyers and investigators in sexual assault and sexual harassment.

The recommendations for prevention, climate and culture, and victim support and care all “appear strong and well-grounded,” Austin wrote, pledging to continue to review them.

“Our values and expectations remain at the core of addressing this problem, and I have every confidence that our Force will get this right,” Austin concluded. “Now is the time to lead. And we will lead.”

McGuire Squadron Says Goodbye to KC-10, Prepares for KC-46

July 2, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.—A KC-10 Extender took off into the dark and rainy New Jersey sky after a short weather delay to link up with F-22s flying over the Atlantic Ocean, marking the end of an era for its unit.

The June 30 flight for the massive tanker from the 2nd Air Refueling Squadron was a historic one for the Air Force’s second-oldest squadron. It was the last time a KC-10 assigned to the 2nd ARS would fly. The 305th Mobility Wing already has sent five of the tankers to the “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., in preparation for the KC-46’s arrival in November.

The remaining Extenders from the 2nd ARS have shifted to the 32nd Air Refueling Squadron within the 305th Air Mobility Wing, which will become a “super” squadron until the last KC-10s at McGuire retire in 2024. The base will bring on 24 KC-46s. McGuire had 32 KC-10s before retirements began.

“Today, we’re officially a KC-46 squadron,” 2nd ARS Commander Lt. Col. Nicholas Arthur said in a July 1 interview, with the image of a KC-10 still on his uniform name patch. “Our folks that are still qualified on the KC-10 will continue to fly with the other KC-10 squadron until we send them all to training or they get other assignments.”

The process started in earnest about six months ago at McGuire, with the first crews heading to Altus Air Force Base, Okla., to train on the KC-46. There are now six crew members at McGuire qualified on the KC-46, with the number expected to grow before the Pegasus arrives in November.

In the meantime, the squadron is revising its processes and programs to shift from Extender operations to the Pegasus. The squadron’s readiness status dropped, taking the 2nd ARS off of the list of units that could deploy. However, since tankers are in such high demand, remaining qualified air crews will still deploy with the 32nd.

The Airmen were originally expecting to stop deploying in the spring to prepare for the conversion, but operational requirements increased with the Afghanistan drawdown and other combatant command needs, so these deployments will continue until October.

“Until we send our folks to training, we’re still going to actively deploy them as KC-10 Airmen because our requirements as a community don’t really go away. Every jet we send to the boneyard, our requirements drop a little bit, but there’s still a heavy demand for tankers, and that doesn’t change just because we’re going to convert, and we just have to learn to adapt and make it work,” Arthur said.

To be able to fly the KC-46, pilots head to Altus or another KC-46 location for three months of qualification training, with another one to two months of additional mission qualification training at McGuire. The New Jersey base will bring some instructors in to help, but as the training requirements increase, those training TDYs will continue.

With the initial jets, the 2nd ARS expects a lot of local flying, oceanic training, and plugging in with exercises “here and there” to get experience.

On the maintenance side, the 605th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron has become a sort of “hybrid” unit with an initial cadre of 41 Airmen being trained on the Pegasus, said Master Sgt. Sydney Melton, the 605th AMXS KC-46 Pegasus lead production superintendent. These Airmen go through 16 to 30 days of “Type 1” training at Altus, with different training times for different Air Force Specialty Codes, and then another 30 days of “on the job” training where they are actually turning wrenches on the aircraft, he said.

Much of the cadre volunteered for this opportunity, said Master Sgt. Gary Chappell, the 605th AMXS KC-10 Extender lead production superintendent. For most of the Airmen in the unit, the KC-10 has been their airframe for the bulk of their careers. So despite the excitement around the KC-46, transitioning to a new, Boeing 767-based aircraft will be challenging.

“A tanker is still a tanker, so some things will translate over, but at the end of the day, we’re talking about a generational asset. That’s gonna be different,” he said.

The KC-46 has new technology in the cockpit and throughout the jet, which will be a change for Airmen used to operating on lower-tech legacy tankers. For communications/navigation maintainers, that will mean some more complicated work.

“There’s going to be some challenges there, but we’re ready for it,” Melton said.

A good thing for McGuire is that multiple bases have already shifted from legacy tankers to the KC-46, and the units communicate their own lessons learned to make the stand-up go more smoothly.

“Every base, both active and Reserve, is doing everything they can to set us up for success, so it’s pretty cool to see that. A lot of the times, it’s sink or swim. Figure it out. Make the mission happen,” Melton said. “So, to see that we’re getting that kind of support from other bases that don’t owe us anything is pretty awesome.”

In the past few months, maintainers have watched five KC-10s leave to go to the boneyard after years at McGuire.

“It’s kind of an eerie feeling to know it’s going and never coming back,” Chappell said.

There are some problem children at the base, though, that some maintainers may not be sad to see go—jets that have provided some frustration to Airmen, so they might like to see them bumped up the list for retirement. But, the maintainers didn’t want to publicly name any of these tails.

“It’s strange, but change is good,” Melton said. “So, we’re working hard to make sure we’re prepped for the incoming jet. A lot of pieces are moving. For the most part, everybody’s working together as a team to make it happen and hoping we get our jets.”

The June 30 flight was originally planned to have a route recognizing the squadron’s more than 100-year-old history. Dating back to the U.S. Signal Corps in 1915, the squadron’s lineage includes service in World War I and enduring the Bataan Death March in World War II. The 2nd ARS was activated in 1989 at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., under Strategic Air Command before moving to McGuire under Air Mobility Command. The KC-10’s mission originally was going to include formation work over Barksdale as a nod to that history, before weather got in the way and that was scrubbed.

The day after the flight, the unit hosted a small celebration of the KC-10’s history with toasts, swag such as T-shirts and coozies, and sharing of stories of the KC-10’s history at McGuire.

The ceremony also held special significance for the small cadre of flight engineers who serve on the KC-10. The Extender is unique among the Air Force’s refueling fleet, in that it is the only one of the tankers to have these Airmen on board in what some called the most important crew member on the jet.

Flight engineers also serve on other aircraft, such as C-17s, C-5s, and helicopters, so the Airmen who served on the KC-10 at McGuire will either stay with the remaining Extender squadron or transfer to other aircraft.

“The flight engineer, in my opinion, is probably the most crucial position on that jet just to make it be able to go do its mission,” Arthur said.

The new KC-46, with its advanced avionics, datalinks, situational awareness, and defensive capabilities, is a major change for the tanker crews. This will require new training on the ground, in the air, and in simulators.

“The shift to this airplane is kind of a mental shift for Mobility Air Forces in general, specifically the tanker community, and how we point toward the future fight and better integrate with the [Combat Air Forces],” Arthur said.

The change is bittersweet, though, with McGuire, and then the broader Air Force, losing a tanker that has been in service since 1981.

“It’s a first love type thing. I understand the decisions that were made and why they were made, and, you know, it is an expensive, old airplane to operate,” he said. “But yeah, you know, you’re always going to love your first airplane.”

CQ Brown Says Air Force Must Match Changing Character of War

July 2, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. is fashioning a fighting force to match what he describes as the “changing character of war,” one where all domains are contested and capabilities matter more than numbers, he told the Atlantic Council on July 1.

As the United States moves away from the Middle East theater and focuses on meeting the challenges of great power competition with China and Russia, Brown questioned the mainstream thinking that America needs to win with quantity of fighter aircraft. Rather, he focused on the mix of capabilities required to overcome a technologically advanced adversary. He also called for a willingness to experiment in the digital realm while staying vigilant to counter rising cyber threats.

“Our future conflicts will be different,” he said, underscoring how Mideast conflicts are winding down.

“Our future adversaries will not allow us permissive access like we’ve been accustomed to in the past, and [we] will be contested at every level, in every domain, and I would submit that we are contested today,” he added.

A technologically more advanced adversary in China or Russia requires a more advanced aircraft.

The Air Force asked to retire a total of 201 legacy aircraft in its 2022 budget request and it will buy 91 new ones, as it looks to posture itself to keep pace with peer adversaries. Planning for the fiscal 2023 budget is underway amid a fiscally constrained environment, and Brown said the service is contemplating what the future force needs to look like.

“It’s easy for us to talk about numbers, and we’re also talking about capability,” he said, giving an example of a comparison between the F-86 and the F-35. “What I really look at is the capabilities required … [as] we look at where the Air Force needs to be about the 2035 timeframe.”

Brown posed that the United States Air Force now possesses “some” of that capability, what he described as a mix of air superiority, global strike, command and control, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

“I want to make sure we have the right mix of capabilities with the right numbers to make it come together,” he said.

Worrying About Cyber

Brown admitted that in the last couple of decades, adversaries have looked for America’s military weaknesses and increasingly targeted the cyber domain.

“The internet security environment has changed,” he said. “Our competitors have worked to blunt our capabilities and erode what I would call our comparative advantages that we had as an Air Force, as a joint force.”

The impact of cyber interference by adversaries is one that plays out on a daily basis in the lives of Americans, Brown said, offering by way of explanation all the information that can be manipulated on an iPhone.

The U.S. needs “to be in a position to move information,” he said. “That’s why the Advanced Battle Management System for us is really how we move information, how we move data, to help improve decision making well ahead of a crisis.”

The fast and secure movement of information must be able to flow from senior leaders to lower-level commanders, but it also means working when that information flow is disconnected or incomplete.

“It’s better to be better prepared with information up front, so if you’re disconnected, you have an aspect of kind of what’s going on,” he said. “You want to be able to have the right information, bring those data sources together, and then be able to use various tools to parse through the information you need to know.”

In a recent KesselRun interview, Air Combat Command’s Deputy Commander, Lt. Gen. Christopher P. Weggeman, described the need for a rapid system of information distribution that is decentralized.

He used an analogy of an Apple Store as headquarters and the end-point devices, such as phones, tablets, and applications to explain the Air Force needs.

“We need an ecosystem that can both be centralized, but [also] rapidly distributed and decentralized, and can work decentralized,” he said. “Whether when we’re connected to the backbone at a high, high, rate of speed; and be highly insightful using AI [artificial intelligence] and ML [machine learning], and be able to do the same when it’s disconnected.”

Then there is the need to “quickly transition between connected and disconnected states; that’s kind of the federated and distributed command and control architecture we need” to be competitive against Russia and China.

Brown said as adversaries test the gray zone boundaries of cyber warfare, the risk for miscalculation rises.

“I personally have been thinking about … the norms of behavior in cyber,” he said. “You look at some of these most recent events that have transpired, because that could lead to a miscalculation.”

Brown said the Air Force needs to continue down the path of digital engineering while remaining cognizant of the risks of operating in the cyber and digital environment.

He offered the example of joint all-domain command and control.

“There is value in this rapid experimentation approach because it’s a way for us to disrupt how we do business,” he said.

Brown said new risks must be taken to realize the Air Force of the future.

“We can’t do the same thing and expect a different result if we’re going to change ourselves for the future,” he said.

“This is an opportunity for us to look at some things that we disrupt, how we do things on a normal basis,” Brown added, while noting his observation of what is done in the tech sector that can be tried at DOD. “It’s an opportunity for us to take a hard look and go experience certain areas, and the aspect of being able to … fail fast, but fail forward.”

Cloud One: Enabling Cloud For Almost Any Department of Defense Use Case

July 2, 2021

The Department of Defense embraced the concept of cloud computing almost a decade ago, but the practical realities of contracts and implementation slowed adoption.

Uncertainty about cost and the lack of cloud engineering talent proved challenging to the same commands that were eager to leverage cloud’s benefits in speed and flexibility.

“Security and compliance concerns added to the reticence,” says Joanne Akhavan, SAIC’s deputy program manager for Cloud One, an Air Force platform modernized and managed by SAIC.

For the Department of the Air Force—and throughout the Department of Defense—Cloud One is a one-stop-shop for acquiring secure cloud services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google—always preconfigured to meet exacting DOD security requirements. Oracle services are also expected to be supported in the coming year.

In addition to multiple cloud offerings, Cloud One is designed for “the cloud curious” and not just “cloud experts,” Akhavan says. “Cloud One enables customers that don’t really have the technical skills or resources to manage their own cloud migration and to take advantage of all the modernized IT capabilities that the cloud has to offer,” Akhavan says. “You get the efficiencies and scalability and security benefits of the cloud without having to be a certified cloud architect or engineer.”

One of those security benefits is a Zero Trust Architecture implemented by the Air Force, a stance that protects customers from malicious acts from outside, or from within, the cloud, such as the recent Solar Winds attack.

Pricing and choice are all built in. “We have AWS. We have Azure. We have Google Cloud,” Akhavan says. “And over the next year, we plan to add OCI, which is Oracle’s cloud infrastructure.”

Through Cloud One’s Kickstart, or C1K, program anyone with a CAC card can sign up for an initial engagement session, where Cloud One specialists can help walk customers through the cloud adoption process. Following that initial discussion, Cloud One technical teams will work customers through every step of the process.

“What we offer is full lifecycle support,” she explains. Technical teams can analyze legacy applications and develop cost estimates both for the initial migration and the long-term sustainment of cloud workloads. The analysis addresses the gamut of questions, from schedule, to cost, to risk assessment and the steps necessary to execute a successful migration. The power Cloud One gives DOD customers is a secure, scalable way to access the latest technologies and best industry practices available in commercial clouds.

Experts can also guide customers through the myriad options that can help manage costs. “Cloud offers a lot of options for pricing,” says Akhavan. On-demand plans let cloud adopters pay only for the bandwidth they actually use. Limiting the days or times of day a system is accessible can help reduce the price tag, for example.

Determining how best to migrate a system—whether to lift-and-shift, or whether to replace a legacy solution with something new that leverages the advantages of cloud—is something else Cloud One experts can help with.

“Automated software deployment tools, supported by a DevSecOps development framework, mean Cloud One customers can even develop brand-new, cloud-native apps with extraordinary speed,” Akhavan says.

Case in point: The Air Force’s new recruiting app, Aim High, was deployed in just two months, Akhavan says, making use of cutting-edge serverless technology “which essentially means they didn’t have to worry about infrastructure, even though it’s a global deployment.”

The Aim High effort involved industry and Air Force mission owners working together for a superior outcome. Cloud One technical teams provide whatever level of support customers require for migration—and they can offer operational support afterward once a customer’s cloud instance is up and running and their app has received its Authority-to-Operate, or ATO.

“Using modern software development practices, like continuous integration/continuous deployment, Aim High completed its migration ahead of schedule and under budget,” Akhavan says. Pinged an average of 11 times a second by current and would-be Air Force personnel all over the world, Aim High is one of the “lowest cost-per-hit applications out there,” she notes, and “It’s been up 100 percent of the time since it’s been deployed. You can’t get more reliable than that.”

“Aim High is just one of more than 65 applications that Cloud One has successfully migrated to the cloud; 42 more are in the pipeline,” Akhavan says, “and another 25 are in the analysis phase.”

Impact Level 6

Cloud One services can run the range from public-facing to sensitive Impact Level 6 missions. Air Force Headquarters A4 is using Cloud One to support mission-critical logistics workloads. To date, Cloud One has one application operating at Impact Level 6—which is the secret level—and four more in the pipeline, Akhavan says.

Cloud One facilitates and promotes Zero Trust for identity and access management, Akhavan says. And its pre-configured cloud services—what Akhavan calls providing “infrastructure as code” (IAC)—spares customers many of the time-consuming procedures that can slow cloud migrations to a crawl. Because security testing and certifications are already built in, agencies can more rapidly gain the necessary Authority-to-Operate, or ATO.

“A mission application coming into Cloud One inherits our ATO for all the common services we offer,” says Akhavan. “So the only part they need to worry about is the coding they put on top of that.”

The payoff: Cloud One migrations are 40 to 60 percent faster.

Akhavan sees cloud services continuing to evolve rapidly, especially as the Air Force accelerates its adoption of digital engineering, which uses software models to test and prototype new systems and predict products and predict when existing ones will need maintenance—a great use case because the software licenses are so expensive. Cloud One is already providing digital engineering as a service—allowing different mission systems owners who use digital engineering to share computing resources and the cost of those very expensive licenses.

Accelerating cloud adoption is vital, says Akhavan, because it is the linchpin of digital transformation. “A fully digital organization gives its people the ability to connect, to access the technology they need to complete their mission, from any place, anywhere, anytime, using any device,” she says. “All that is only enabled by cloud—by the global connectivity and the data accessibility you get from cloud. That is what unlocks it all.”

Raytheon Receives $2 Billion EMD Contract for LRSO Missiles

July 1, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force awarded a $2 billion contract to Raytheon Missiles and Defense to engineer and develop the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon system, the service’s next-generation air-launched nuclear missile.

The deal, announced July 1, is for the engineering and manufacturing development phase, which is set to last through February 2027 as Raytheon will continue to develop the cruise missiles, with a goal of demonstrating full production readiness. The contract was the result of a sole-source acquisition.

“The team’s extensive work—with a major focus on digital engineering—and close collaboration with the Air Force throughout the technology maturation and risk reduction phase, has guided us to an EMD contract award,” said Paul Ferraro, vice president of Air Power at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, in a statement to Air Force Magazine. “Transitioning to the EMD phase is a big step toward delivering this critical capability to the Air Force to strengthen our nation’s deterrence posture.”

The announcement comes just a few months after the Air Force announced in April that the service was proceeding with Raytheon as the highly classified program’s “sole source contractor” on the technology, maturation, and risk reduction (TMRR) phase, removing competitor Lockheed Martin.

Raytheon’s TMRR deal was worth $900 million and was expected to run through 2022. The Air Force said at the time that it had “high confidence” in choosing the Raytheon missile design due to the success of the program.

The LRSO is slated to replace the nuclear AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile beginning in about 2030, equipping the B-52 and B-21 bombers as one-third of the nuclear triad. Its range is expected to be in excess of 1,500 miles, and first flight could come in 2022.

The Air Force’s 2022 budget request included $609 million for the program. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2017 that the LRSO will cost $10 billion to produce 1,000 missiles, for a unit cost of $10 million apiece, but the Arms Control Association has estimated the cost could be closer to $20 billion.

The LRSO represents just part of the Air Force’s nuclear modernization efforts. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, being developed by Northrop Grumman, is scheduled to have its first flight in 2023. The GBSD is expected to achieve initial operational capability in 2029 and full operational capability with 400 missiles seven years later in 2036.

Army, Navy Space Units to Begin Transfer to Space Force This Year

July 1, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Space Force will begin to convert Sailors and Soldiers into Guardians this month and unit transfers from the Army and Navy will play out over the next couple of years. But just as the Air Force is not the only service with aircraft, the Space Force will not be the only service in space.

Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno, the Space Force’s director of staff, told Air Force Magazine the services are agreed on which organizations will transfer. “Some services may retain their own space capabilities.” She did not provide details, but said announcements will come on transfers later this year.

Speaking at a Mitchell Institute Space Power Advantage Research Center (MI-SPARC) Space Power Forum at AFA’s Doolittle Leadership Center, Armagno said transfers must play out slowly, in the next “year or two,” because shifting control is not like flipping a switch.

“When we transfer units and missions, we have to make sure that the mission does not fail,” Armagno said. “And so that requires deep evaluation, which we’re doing today.”

In a wide-ranging discussion that covered the progress made in the service’s first 18 months, Armagno zeroed in on the current threats posed by China and Russia, describing adversary anti-satellite capabilities and the largely vulnerable U.S. space architecture.

China’s Shijian-17 satellite has a robotic arm that can be used to grab and destroy an American satellite, she said. China has said the robotic arm in its technology is for repairing satellites or conducting maintenance in space, but she called that misleading.

“If you’re going to repair something, it needs to be repairable,” Armagno said. “If it’s going to be refueled, it needs to have a fuel port. … This is not the case with their satellites.”

U.S. satellites are likewise not designed to be refueled or repaired. “So, Shijian-17, we see it as a weapon,” she said.

Armagno also cited Russia’s recent testing of a ground-based anti-satellite weapon designed to destroy small satellites in low Earth orbit. Such threats gets at the heart of the creation of the new service, Armagno said, deterring aggression and assuring space operations, which are vital to the ground forces.

Armagno listed the commands that have already stood up, including Space Operations Command (SpOC) in Colorado Springs in 2020 and this summer’s upcoming Space Systems Command (SSC) in Los Angeles, and she previewed the upcoming Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM).

She also spoke of a flattened management structure in the Pentagon headquarters to encourage efficiency and creativity. The “C suite” leadership design was assisted by private consultants and modeled after the structure of the National Reconnaissance Office. Still, only some 250 staff members have onboarded at the headquarters, about one third of the total envisioned.

Space Force now has 5,600 Guardians and about 12,000 personnel at present. Armagno said the vision is for a “lean, agile, and mission focused” service that totals about 16,000, a goal that may be some years off, she indicated.

In part, budget restrictions have limited the number of transfers from other services to just 50 this fiscal year, with another 350 planned for the next fiscal year, the Space Force indicated June 30. The Space Force in 2020 advertised 41 civilian jobs and received 5,722 applicants, demonstrating a much higher demand than growth rate.

Armagno admitted that new strategies will have to be employed to recruit and retain talent and compete with the high-paying private space industry.

“We just don’t think the traditional Air Force, if you will, or even Army, Navy recruiting methods are necessarily going to work for the Space Force,” she said. “We’re looking for a certain level of innovation and creativity.”

Congress, too, has limited how quickly Space Force can staff up.

Thousands of Air Force personnel remain administratively assigned to Space Force and have not yet been transferred. Likewise, the Army and Navy are not required to transfer their space assets, so Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond must negotiate with the services to voluntarily give up their assets, and potentially, their personnel.

Armagno said Space Force does not need new congressional authority.

“No, we don’t lack congressional authority. The services are working together,” she told Air Force Magazine.

The transfer process for personnel is stipulated by Congress to be voluntary, which means the service members in those positions may choose to stay with their service or must be counted and undergo training as Guardians. A training pipeline has to be set up to support the mission.

“I think you’ll see—this calendar year and into next—you’ll see the majority of our transfers,” she added.

Editor’s Note: This story was corrected on July 2 and updated with additional information from the Space Force. The original incorrectly stated the number of units moving that will transfer and the stage of interservice negotiations about what units will move. Those decisions are complete, but not yet announced, the Space Force said.

ISIS in Afghanistan Remains a ‘Serious Threat,’ Special Envoy Warns

July 1, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

As the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan reaches its final stages, the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch in the country remains a “serious threat,” warned John T. Godfrey, the acting U.S. Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

Speaking with reporters on a call July 1, Godfrey echoed other recent warnings from American officials and generals that the Islamic State group’s presence in Afghanistan, thought to be severely diminished just a few years ago, is far from completely eradicated.

“Regarding the ISIS-Khorasan branch in Afghanistan, it is a group that we have been focused on for some time. We assess that it constitutes a serious threat. It’s one that we’ve certainly been focused on,” said Godfrey, who also serves as acting coordinator of counterterrorism in the State Department. “And I think that the assessment … by U.S. military leadership of the potential for that group to reconstitute capability within two years is consistent with what we’ve heard from other quarters of the U.S. government, so I think we would echo that.”

Concerns over the stability of the Afghan government have increased significantly as the U.S. drawdown there continues. More than 50 percent of U.S. troops are now out of the country, the Defense Department has said, and reports from Reuters and CNN indicate the formal withdrawal could be complete in a matter of days.

At the same time, the Taliban has surged, seizing a number of strategically important districts. Gen. Austin S. Miller, commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission, offered a bleak assessment of the situation June 29, warning of a potential civil war, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. defense officials have said they will continue to conduct “over-the-horizon” operations in support of Afghanistan once the withdrawal is complete, though details on where forces will be stationed long-term have yet to be publicly shared.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met with Uzbekistan Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov at the Pentagon on July 1. Uzbekistan shares a border with Afghanistan and has reportedly already been approached by U.S. officials about potentially letting American forces use bases in the region.

The particular threat of ISIS in Afghanistan, meanwhile, is one that cannot be ignored, Godfrey said. While the Taliban remains the largest threat to the Afghan government and has waged offenses against ISIS-Khorasan in the past, the Islamic State has shown a capability for resilience, both in Afghanistan and more broadly.

“They remain quite persistent and quite patient in terms of trying to reconstitute capability and reassert some level of presence, and in some cases control, in areas where they’ve previously suffered setbacks,” Godfrey said.

And while the organization as a whole retains hopes of re-establishing a territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria, it continues to increase its presence in other Asian and African countries, Godfrey said. That marked a key emphasis in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS’s Ministerial in Rome on June 28.

“One of the things I think is interesting about that is that they have managed to devolve some level of authority to those local wilayat in terms of organization, revenue generation, and in some cases, the authority to plot and execute attacks,” Godfrey said. “And that, I think, is something that is quite troubling and that we remain quite focused on.”

Why Frank Kendall’s Nomination to be Air Force Secretary Remains on Hold

July 1, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is holding up Frank Kendall’s nomination for Air Force Secretary over the Pentagon’s decision to award the F-35 international training center to Arkansas’s Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Air Force Magazine has learned.

Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township possessed “superior qualifications” in the bid, a Peters spokesperson told Air Force Magazine on July 1 in response to inquiries as to why Peters, along with Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Utah Republican Mike Lee, have put holds on the nomination vote.

Warren has yet to respond to a request for comment, and Lee’s office declined to confirm or deny that a hold was in place.

“Senator Peters wants—and Michigan deserves—additional information and data from the Air Force and the Department of Defense regarding its process surrounding the recent F-35 international training center decision,” the Peters spokesperson said.

At Kendall’s May 25 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Peters sought a commitment from the nominee for a fair and transparent selection process, should he be confirmed before the Air Force decision was made.

“Its location clearly exceeds all of the mission requirements,” Peters told Kendall, highlighting the existing infrastructure, runway length, and number of aircraft shelters.

“Michigan hosts the largest contiguous joint overland service range airspace complex east of the Mississippi River,” Peters added. “In addition, the folks on the ground in Macomb County have been enthusiastic hosts of this base for over 100 years.”

The Air Force announced June 3 that Ebbing Air National Guard base in Fort Smith, Ark., would be the preferred location for the F-35 Lightning II training center.

The training center initiative stems from a request by allies for a U.S.-based F-16 and F-35 training center.

In testimony, Peters said Singapore would train its F-16 and F-35 pilots there, while F-35 pilots from Finland, Poland, and Switzerland would also use the base. Meanwhile, the Swiss government announced June 30 a $5.5 billion award to Lockheed Martin to make the F-35A its preferred fighter aircraft.

Selfridge was chosen as an alternate location for the training center should Ebbing fail an environmental assessment study.

The Republic of Singapore’s F-16 Fighting Falcon training unit is currently based at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, but ramp and airspace capacity constraints do not allow an expansion.

The new training center will have a capacity for up to 36 fighter aircraft.

“The reasoning provided so far does not add up,” the Peters spokesperson said. “Senator Peters is fighting for Michigan and to get to the bottom of how and why the Air Force made this decision.”

The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question as to when the senator might lift his hold and whether he intends to allow a vote before the August recess, which is slated for Aug. 9-Sept. 15.

In the meantime, John P. Roth, who has served more than 160 days as acting Air Force Secretary, will remain in that role. He is already the service’s fourth-longest-serving acting secretary and is three weeks away from becoming the longest-serving acting secretary since 1999.