Pacific ABMS On-Ramp Canceled Due to Budget Cuts

March 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force canceled its Pacific-based Advanced Battle Management System on-ramp later this year after it already cut back the scope of its most recent event in Europe because of Congressionally mandated budget cuts.

Congress, in the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill, questioned the need for the wide-ranging exercises. Lawmakers claim the Air Force doesn’t have clear priorities or planning for ABMS, which began as a replacement for the E-8C Joint STARS and morphed into a massive overhaul of how the service can connect sensors, aircraft, and assets in other domains. The skepticism and cutbacks are limiting how the service is planning and operating the on-ramps, as the Department of the Air Force enters a new budget cycle that is expected to keep the Pentagon’s funding limited.

The service last month held the fourth demonstration in Europe, showcasing variously technology aimed at new ways to connect sensors and shooters locally at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The even focused on base defense and ways to better link sensors and aircraft in the Baltic Sea.

The funding cut meant the Europe event could not include new “user interface and applications” that would have presented new ways to “leverage data for information advantage and decision superiority,” said Preston Dunlap, the Air and Space Force’s chief architect, in a March 17 roundtable. U.S. Air Forces in Europe also “had the opportunity to do more agile operations,” but that too had to be curtailed in favor of defensive operations because of funding.

USAFE boss Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian told Air Force Magazine the command shifted its own funding into the European ABMS onramp because it was such a priority. This included taking money from the command’s information technology accounts to address IT-related issues in the event.

Although smaller than originally planned, the European event still demonstrated several new capabilities focused on three mission sets:

Dynamic targeting
Base defense
Agile operations.

Companies on the ground or operating remotely included Amazon, Juniper, SpaceX, ViaSat, Apogee Research, Kratos, and Anduril, among others. Each worked “side by side with our operators to be able to get capabilities over the finish line and to harden them and to make them usable for the activity,” Dunlap said.

For example, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Ninja counter-UAS system linked up with Anduril’s Sentry sensor towers in the base defense scenario, while SpaceX’s Starlink internet communication system moved unclassified and classified data from local systems and military satellite communications “back and forth in a way that’s never been done before,” Dunlap said.

A C-17 also moved classified data through its “organic” satellite communications capability to handheld Apple and Samsung tablets, with which operators could interact, in what Dunlap said was a step toward “getting the power of the ops center or the intel center in the palm of your hand.”

The Air Force is planning its fifth event this summer, with the goal to focus on “decision superiority and information advantage;” survivable, agile, and distributed operations; and rapid all-domain kill chains, Dunlap said.

The sixth planned event in Pacific, which was canceled because of the funding shortfall, was to also include Australian forces. It would have built upon the framework of the Europe event, which was the first to include allies, “in a real operational environment,” Dunlap said. It also would have been the second ABMS on-ramp to take place in the Pacific—the third demonstration took place in the region in September 2020.

The event “would have been very helpful to drive this forward and add in more partner nations as well to the networks,” Dunlap said.

“We’ve got to be able to test, and experiment, and demonstrate, and operate like we fight and where we fight,” he said. “We need not just the ingredients, but the recipe, and we need to test the recipe where we need to operate.”

Heraldry Reviews Are Done, But Don’t Expect a Report.

March 17, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

When Department of the Air Force leaders in December ordered comprehensive reviews of all organizational heraldry, symbology, awards, mottos, and more, to identify issues that might impede their drive toward increased diversity and inclusion, they gave commanders 60 days to make any necessary changes.

Anything deemed “derogatory to any race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, age, or disability status”—including callsigns, if commanders chose—was fair game, spokesperson Maj. Holly Hess told Air Force Magazine.

But the findings of these commander-led inquiries won’t be compiled into a comprehensive report, said department spokesperson Ann M. Stefanek. Rather than spot checks for compliance, the reviews were intended to focus commanders’ attention on inclusion and review heraldry with that in mind, she said.

“This was a direction to go do, make changes on the spot, and get feedback from your units as to how you can make things better,” she said.

The order didn’t require commanders to compile lists of problematic aspects of heraldry or culture that fell under the reviews’ purview. Likewise, they didn’t have to share information about their findings or action steps with higher levels of service or Department of the Air Force leadership.

“The Department of the Air Force trusts its leaders to make thoughtful judgement calls and trusts those leaders to conduct a proper review,” Hess said. “Commanders have been advised to work in conjunction with their historians, staff judge advocates, and equal opportunity specialists in determining any item(s) that, in their judgment, could detract from a professional or inclusive workplace.”

Commanders received no special guidance, frameworks, or rubrics to use in the review, Stefanek said. “I wish we could give a guidebook, because it sure would make life easier for commanders, but that’s why our senior leaders have put great trust and confidence in commanders to make those tough calls,” she said.

That being said, if Airmen or Guardians feel that their commanders are dropping the ball when it comes to ensuring diversity and inclusion in their units, they’ve got “opportunities …where they can report a problem,” Stefanek noted.

At least one Air Force organization made changes as a result of the directive. The 51st Civil Engineer Squadron at Osan Air Base, South Korea, jettisoned a morale patch and went back to an older version when it was found the more recent image resembled an image used by a white supremacist group, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported March 16.

B-1s, B-2s Fly Together Near Iceland, Highlighting Importance of Arctic Ops

March 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Two B-2 Spirits and two B-1B Lancers linked up near Iceland for a training mission March 16, highlighting the importance the Air Force is placing on the Arctic region.

The four bombers flew a “long-range integration” in the high north, meeting up off the coast of Iceland during the night to “refine the skills necessary” to operate in that environment, U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a press release.

“Bomber Task Force missions are critical to maintaining our global competitive edge,” USAFE Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Steven L. Basham said in the release. “The importance of providing Airmen the opportunity to train in unique environments can’t be overstated.”

The B-2s deployed to Lajes Field, Portugal, earlier in the day, where they conducted a hot-pit refueling and crew swap before taking off again. The bombers will be based at the installation in the Azores for their task force deployment, according to USAFE.

The B-1s, from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, deployed to Ørland Air Base, Norway, for the first time last month, and have flown multiple training missions in the region.

Deploying the bombers to Norway and operating in other areas of the high north demonstrates the Air Force’s intention to operate regularly in the Arctic, sending a message both to allies and potential adversaries such as Russia that the region is a priority.

The Department of the Air Force in July 2020 released its first-ever Arctic Strategy, highlighting that the Air and Space Force “is the most active and invested U.S. military department in the Arctic.”

“As more countries are drawn to the Arctic region, some with competing interests, it’s imperative that we maintain free, fair access for all nations,” Basham said March 5. “And we will continue to work diligently with our NATO allies and partners to ensure that stability.”

F-35 Full-Rate Still Months Away, But Won’t Signal Production Surge

March 17, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon won’t declare the F-35 to have completed development for a few months more at least, but even when that happens and the program is declared ready for full-rate production, there won’t be a big jump in the jets coming off the production line, the program office reported.

“We’ll see an estimate” on when full-rate can be declared “in a couple of months,” said an F-35 Joint Program Office spokesperson who spoke to Air Force Magazine on background. But, she added, “I don’t know that there is a big surge [in production] associated with Lot 15,” which is the next lot being negotiated between the government and prime contractor Lockheed Martin.

The sticking point in declaring full-rate—known as Milestone C, which signifies the conclusion of development—continues to be integrating the F-35 with the Pentagon’s Joint Simulation Environment, she said. The JSE is a kind of wargaming system that determines the right mix of platforms and weapons for a war scenario, but it is dependent on dataponts such as maintenance turn rates and aircraft availability, which have been volatile over the six years the F-35 has been operating with the services.

“The amount of integration … of proprietary data … wasn’t clearly understood up-front,” the JPO spokesperson said. There’s now a team in the Office of the Secretary of Defense that is “evaluating all the necessary steps” to get that integration to occur, and “get it up and running to a satisfying place,” she said.

A new estimate for completion hasn’t been finalized. Once OSD gets it from the Naval Air Systems Command and the JPO, it will have to certify it as “a new baseline,” she said.

“It’s more complicated than originally anticipated,” she said. However, there is “more mature” data available on the F-35’s availability performance, so a solution is within sight.

Former Pentagon acquisition and sustainment czar Ellen Lord postponed the full-rate production for more than a year waiting on the F-35’s integration with the JSE. The inability to get the jet out of the engineering and manufacturing development phase has been seen by some as an opportunity to curtail the F-35 buy.

Lockheed F-35 Vice President Gregory M. Ulmer told reporters in February that the next three lots of F-35 production—15, 16, and 17—will collectively have “on the order of 100” fewer aircraft than the Lot 12, 13, and 14 deal. He didn’t say why production would slide, but original plans called for overall F-35 production—for U.S., partner, and foreign military sales customers—to continue ramping up to about 220 a year and plateauing there until the bulk of the jets going to the U.S. services were delivered.

The Air Force, which has requested 48 jets a year but was funded for 60 by Congress in the last few years, will not reach its goal of 1,763 F-35s until the early 2040s if it doesn’t substantially increase its buy rate. Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said at AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium last month that a production surge may be necessary.

While “production smoothing”—attaining an efficient production rate and sticking to it—is desirable to “make sure your curve is level and predictable for suppliers”—the U.S. services are rejiggering their F-35 plans, according to the JPO.

The services have “had to re-phase” their overall aircraft buying strategies, “or in some cases, they’ve decided they’d rather buy later and hold on for the Block 4 capability.” She added that “all the services are going to have to figure out how best to apply their scarce resources.”

The current configuration of the F-35 is the Block 3f. Block 4 will incorporate additional capabilities, made possible by the Tech Refresh 3, which cuts into the production line in Lot 15, now under negotiation. The TR3, as it’s known, incorporates more powerful processors and a larger display, among other improvements.

Air Force officials have said privately for the last two years that they prefer to buy bigger quantities of the Block 4, as it will obviate the need to retrofit a lot of jets with the earlier, “baseline” configuration.

Lot 15, which delivers in 2023, will likely call for 148 aircraft, she said. The totals for Lots 16 and 17 aren’t yet available. Lots 12, 13, and 14 were for 149, 160, and 169 jets, respectively.

“I don’t think you’ll see a large deviation” in production when full-rate is declared, she said. “When we finally cross the line on Milestone C, we’re not suddenly going to get additional manufacturing capability.”

Improving Distributed Decision Making

March 17, 2021

The Air Force has been modernizing for years, digitizing a variety of tasks. That transition has been greatly accelerated by the pandemic. While the majority of organizations, including the Air Force, may have allowed intermittent telework, they had never before had to contend with the challenges of an almost fully remote workforce. As a result, airmen are now distributed in unprecedented ways.

As airmen have transformed dining rooms into desks and serve as technical support for their children’s remote learning, bigger challenges persist. How does an organization such as the Air Force transition from an in-person prioritization and planning process to an equally effective digital alternative during and after the pandemic?

How has changing to a remote work environment affected the way organizations conduct their day-to-day business operations and decision-making processes? According to a Harvard Business Review study on knowledge workers conducted earlier this year, since COVID-19 workers have spent 12% less time managing across their organizations through meetings, and 9% more time on externally focused work with customers or other external partners. The study’s findings suggested that workplace changes due to COVID-19 have helped us to more effectively prioritize our work. We are spending less time in meetings, and more time doing the work that allows our organization to be successful.

At least one Air Force organization has managed to successfully carry on its activities virtually through the use of technology enablers during the pandemic. This organization is tasked with many Top-Secret level projects to support the Air Force mission.

The organization’s Program Objective Memorandum (POM) process for collecting, managing, and prioritizing its budgeting data is complex due to the large number of stakeholders involved and the important mission of the organization. Prior to COVID-19, the process was already effective in many ways—sophisticated enough to receive inputs from many stakeholders and to capture complex layers of data. However, it involved multiple disconnected systems and spreadsheets for requirements collection, gap analysis, prioritization, and programming. In addition, while many aspects of their process did not include classified data, the nature of their work could only be reached through certain physical access points on a military base.

Once COVID-19 lockdown restrictions began, access to the base and thus the network became limited because nearly all employees had become remote. The organization had two choices:

They could delay their process until post-pandemic, thereby creating schedule risk,
They could find a way to streamline and automate their existing process so that valuable work could continue in spite of the majority of their workforce teleworking.

This past fall, more than 150 Action Officers, Approvers, and Senior Leaders collaborated to manage their data using a new, innovative process. They gained approval to move part of their data and processes to a cloud-based service that could be accessed from any location. This helped them complete their data collection, evaluation, and prioritization steps in a more efficient way and circumvented much of the access issue. The new process was further bolstered by the organization moving large portions of their data to a single platform that allowed for data-distributed management for all stakeholders in the organization.

The organization moved from using multiple platforms to a single platform for collecting Gaps and Issues, managing the meta data, leveraging permissions for user access, and prioritizing. These innovative adjustments enabled them to gain even greater efficiency in their process and to continue serving their mission during an uncertain time. Despite the challenges, training, and change management inherent in a new process, the organization’s leaders reported a 25% improvement for the process compared to pre-pandemic, and expect additional improvements in the coming years.

To consolidate this process, the organization partnered with Decision Lens, a data-science based decision-making solution that helps organizations with effective planning. Decision Lens provided the organization with a FedRAMP certified data and analytics management platform, housed in an easy-to-use software system. Action Officers were able to access, update and score their data to generate a prioritization, which was then used as the key artifact during group and board final reviews. This process not only eliminated the need for multiple disconnected spreadsheets and systems, but also enabled senior leaders to have greater insight into deeper layers of decision drivers.

The partnership with Decision Lens enabled the organization to create a direct line from strategic priorities to collection, to management, to scoring. COVID-19 has led the organization to streamline its procedures and operate more efficiently than ever before.

The pandemic has forced many people and organizations to become creative in how they operate, and in some ways to rethink their decision-making processes. Ongoing isolation has led organizations to work harder than ever to collaborate and work together. Organizations have realized the limitations of their traditional methods of storing and processing data and are seeking modern solutions to not only continue operations, but to actually innovate and improve their processes to advance towards their goals without geographical limitations.

Decision Lens helps organizations prioritize, plan, and allocate resources effectively. Learn more about how your organization can thrive by automating certain programming, budgeting, and execution processes in a distributed workforce environment.

B-2s Head to Lajes Field for Bomber Task Force

March 16, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

B-2s deployed to Europe on March 16, conducting a hot-pit refeuling at Lajes Field, Portugal, before taking off again to conduct bomber task force missions in the region.

The undisclosed number of bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., and did the hot-pit refueling and crew swap with its engines running at the base, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe release. The B-2s will be based out of Lajes Field for their upcoming missions.

The B-2 deployment comes as B-1s from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, are deployed to Ørland Air Base, Norway, for the first time, to conduct their own bomber task force missions.

“These missions will add even more depth to this already historic bomber task force iteration,” USAFE boss Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said in a release. “B-2s joining the B-1s in theater offers unique opportunities to advance our readiness as we continue to work with and learn from our allies.”

USAFE did not disclose how long the B-2 deployment will last. The deployments of both the B-1 and B-2 are occurring as NATO’s massive Defender Europe exercise kicks off. This year’s iteration will include more than 30,000 personnel from 27 nations, with operations in more than 30 training zones, according to U.S. Army Europe.

SOUTHCOM Looking at New Intelligence-Gathering Ops to Counter ISR Shortfall

March 16, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. Southern Command is turning to big data and artificial intelligence to gain more leverage on transnational criminal organizations, while also keeping an eye on China’s expansion in the region and monitoring Russia’s disinformation efforts.

SOUTHCOM boss Adm. Craig S. Faller, both in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee and in a press conference March 16, repeatedly sounded the alarm on Beijing’s expansionist moves into Central and South America, such as assessing deep-water port access, 5G development, and recently the use of “mask and vaccine” diplomacy to exert their influence.

Globally, China has made an “insidious move forward for global economic dominance,” and that is being seen in South America, Faller said.

In the time of COVID-19, China has distributed tens of millions of doses of vaccines largely focusing on countries they want to pressure. Nine of the 16 countries in SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility support Taiwan, and those countries are on the receiving end of China’s attempts to use the vaccine for political influence, he said.

In testimony and other public appearances, Faller has repeatedly said his command does not get enough ISR for what it needs to do, both in tracking China’s move and in guiding interdiction missions targeting the drug trade. However, the command in the past budget received a 46 percent cut to its ISR budget, which “significantly challenges our ability to understand threats of all types in the theater,” Faller told lawmakers.

“Prioritization is hard,” Faller said, adding that across the combatant commands “no one’s ever satisfied. We get a fair shake.”

To try to get around the ISR shortfall, however, the command has undergone two pilot programs in the past year that have “shown great promise” by using artificial intelligence and “big data” to evaluate open-source posts on social media and other online sources to collect intelligence. While there is a place for sorties by P-8s and MQ-9s to collect surveillance, online information gathering is growing in importance, he said.

“We’ve got to have the right balance going forward,” Faller said. “There is a role for manned and unmanned [ISR] … in addition to using data in the information space.”

The monitoring of online disinformation has proven important for not only countering China, but Russia as well. Moscow has continued “to try to spoil and undermine U.S. interests.” For example, Spanish language posts are second only to Russian language posts in disinformation campaigns linked to Moscow, Faller said.

Space Force Must Move Faster to Counter China

March 16, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

While the U.S. is still the world’s leader in space, China can move much faster and the U.S. Space Force needs to adapt with new acquisition processes to stay ahead, the new service’s No. 2 said March 16.

Gen. David D. Thompson, the Space Force’s vice chief of space operations, said during a Foreign Policy Research Institute event that America’s lead is shrinking because Beijing is “moving forward rapidly … and investing heavily.”

The Space Force’s acquisition process, largely a remnant from Air Force Space Command, is a cycle that takes a long time to develop, while China’s cycle time to build and fly new capabilities is three times as fast. China is growing “both in number and increasing in sophistication,” Thompson said.

“We’re still the best in the world at space, … but we’ve got to adapt to the 21st century world, or we will be left behind,” Thompson said.

China has already demonstrated weapons that would target space-based capabilities, in addition to jamming systems that can attack U.S. systems “at a very large scale,” he said. The U.S. systems are “incredibly capable, but small in number,” and it does not take that many orbital or direct-ascent weapons to “be able to threaten a significant portion of the constellation.” To counter this, the Space Force needs to design a more distributed architecture that is harder to attack, along with new defensive systems, he said.

The Space Force is working with Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to develop new acquisition processes that “are more streamlined to allow us to be more agile in terms of rapidly fielding capabilities,” Thompson said.

The new service is developing its Space Systems Command, which will oversee acquisition. The new command is coming together and will likely be fully established this summer. “Stay tuned, expect an announcement soon,” he said.

Space Systems Command is one of three field commands in the Space Force, and it will operate like Air Force Materiel Command in overseeing acquisition and development. Its “foundational element” is the legacy Space and Missile Systems Center, with other “elements” being added to it.

The Space Force is growing in size and bringing on personnel. As of March, the service has 4,300 uniformed “Guardians,” 6,000 civilians, and 6,000 USAF Airmen assigned to the service for support roles such as security forces, civil engineers, logisticians, and a “whole set” of other roles.

NORAD: Advanced Cruise Missile Threat Requires Better Awareness

March 16, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Advanced cruise missiles and potential hypersonic weapons will challenge North American Aerospace Defense Command’s legacy warning systems, so the command needs to improve awareness to provide earlier warning.

USAF Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16 that the cruise missile threat from Russia is a considerable challenge and leaves decision makers with few options.

“We don’t want to be in a situation … where end game defeat is our only option,” he said.

Sophisticated cruise missiles could be launched from significant distances from North America, such as from bombers over Russian soil or from submarines or attack vessels. “Whether subsonic or hypersonic, these missiles can range targets in the homeland and present a very real challenge for our defensive capabilities,” he said in testimony. “Russia has already amassed an inventory of both nuclear and conventional variants, while China is expected to develop similar capabilities in the next decade.”

Maintaining a healthy triad is the first defense from this threat, VanHerck said. But, NORAD also needs capabilities to go “further left … of the archer, before takeoff” so it can be aware of the threat quickly and provide the “decision space,” he said.

“The proliferation of these systems creates all the more incentive for focused investments in improved sensor networks, domain awareness, and information dominance capabilities,” he said in testimony. “Those investments, coupled with the development of layered denial, deterrence, and defeat mechanisms capable of addressing current and emerging threats, are fundamental to the defense of our homeland.”

NORAD is currently capable of defending from a “limited number” of ballistic missiles from a rogue actor, such as North Korea. However, “capacity is the biggest challenge going forward” with a small number of ground-based interceptors (GBI), VanHerck told reporters during a March 16 press conference at the Pentagon.

The Missile Defense Agency is undertaking a service-life extension program on GBIs, which includes pulling them out of the ground and going “through them with a fine-toothed comb” to try to determine which parts are likely to fail. Other boosters are also getting “additional capabilities” as part of this process, he said.

The next step will be the Next Generation Interceptor program. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks is currently assessing the decision to proceed. The Pentagon has been working toward two development contracts, with plans calling for MDA to pick two teams to build up to 20 new interceptors, Breaking Defense reported.

Additionally, VanHerck said he expects the new Long Range Discrimination Radar at Clear Air Force Station, Alaska, to progress quickly. It is expected to power up in September. He said his “No. 1 requirement” with MDA on this is “timing, to not have any slips in delivery of that capability.”