US Planning to Train 12 Ukrainian F-16 Pilots This Fiscal Year, as ANG Provides New Details

Feb. 16, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. plans to train 12 Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s this fiscal year, said a National Guard official, providing new details about the high-profile program.

Eight of those pilots are currently undergoing training, Air National Guard officials say. Four more are also set to be trained before the end of fiscal 2024, Capt. Erin Hannigan of the Arizona National Guard added.

Ukraine has long appealed for F-16s to augment its small fleet of Soviet-era planes as it strives to hold the line against Russian forces in what has become a bloody war of attrition. The U.S.-made planes would be superior to the aircraft the Ukrainians have been flying and would also enable Ukraine’s air force to employ Western-supplied munitions more efficiently, U.S. officials say.

Last year, the U.S. and western European nations began parallel programs to train pilots and maintainers, which is being coordinated by an air force capability coalition that Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States are co-chairing.

“It is very much a standardized training program that multiple countries are participating in to include the United States with training here in the United States, and English language training that precedes the tactical training,” a senior defense official said Feb. 16.

The U.S. and its European allies have yet to spell out when all of the planes would be deployed in Ukraine and the total number of pilots that will be trained. The U.S. and its allies also have not provided plans on what munitions the F-16s would employ.

The 162nd Wing of the Arizona Air National Guard is providing the pilot training in the U.S.

“The training is going great,” Air National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an interview at the AFA Warfare Symposium. “They’re flying F-16s solo every day.”

At first, four Ukrainian pilots were being trained. But then a new batch of four pilots arrived in late January. Funding to train up to 12 pilots remains despite a $95 billion defense supplemental bill with funds for military aid to Ukraine that remains stalled in Congress, Hannigan said, as the money for the tuition-based F-16 training was already allocated.

The pilot training is expected to be completed between May and August, Hannigan said. That is longer timeframe than the Pentagon and the Air National Guard initially suggested in the fall when the first pilots began training in October.

“We have to provide a fully capable combat operator,” Loh explained in a media roundtable. “We’re thinking more long term, so some of the requirements on them has shifted, and so that has necessitated a little bit longer [timeframe]. They’re all going through right now, and everything’s good on that point.”

The U.S. is also training dozens of maintainers, but they are still going through English language training in San Antonio, Texas. “Maintenance training location is still being determined but will not occur at the 162nd Wing,” Hannigan said.

The U.S. has the potential to train still more pilots and trainers if the Biden administration decides to expand the effort.

“Obviously, if that’s going to grow, or we’re going to continue that we’ll need to make sure that we have the resources to support that,” Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson told Air & Space Forces Magazine in a Feb. 15 interview.

Space Force’s Long-Awaited Commercial Strategy May Finally Be Coming

Feb. 16, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

AURORA, Colo.—The Space Force’s long-awaited commercial space strategy is inching closer to being finalized, Chief of Space Operation Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said Feb. 13, as the service takes a deliberate approach to the crucial plan for collaboration.

“We’ve really come almost to closing on the commercial space strategy,” said Saltzman during the AFA Warfare Symposium, noting that he was loath to say it was imminent after delays and months of anticipation.

Saltzman attributed the current delay to two factors: aligning it with the Pentagon’s overall space strategy and the ongoing process of incorporating feedback into the document.

“We want to be synchronized with the Secretary of Defense’s staff that’s working on a commercial strategy,” Saltzman said, referring to the Department of Defense’s separate space strategy.

“In all of my interactions with industry, one of the things I talk about are some of the tenets that I’m employing in this strategy, and I get a lot of feedback,” Saltzman added, detailing that other senior leaders are also adding feedback to the document.

The Space Force has been leveraging commercial space capabilities for years now. Its facilities at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., host dozens of commercial launches, and the new service stood up a Commercial Services Office last June.

However, industry officials have raised concerns about hurdles when working with the government, urging the department to address them moving forward.

Col. Richard A. Kniseley, Senior Materiel Leader, Commercial Space Office, Space Systems Command – Dan Jablonsky, Board of Directors, Maxar Technologies, and John Springmann, Senior VP, tomorrow.io – Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine photo

During a panel discussion, industry leaders addressed the challenges of policy transparency and market dynamics in the space industry. Dan Jablonsky, a member of the board of directors at Maxar Technologies, emphasized the need for clear guidelines regarding attacks on commercial assets in space and the government’s commitment to their protection, drawing from his experience in the ISR business with the military.

“It’s very important that the U.S. sets the policy guidelines about how it thinks about its industries, its commercial opportunities,” Jablonsky said, adding that a hypothetical scenario involving an attack on Lockheed Martin factories in Texas would be considered “an act of war”, highlighting the absence of guidelines regarding incidents in space.

Echoing the sentiment, Becky Cudzilo, a senior fellow at Astroscale, underscored the importance of transparency when utilizing commercial assets in scenarios like wargames. She also highlighted concerns regarding liability.

“That is something that has to be discussed, and at least made very clear to each commercial provider,” said Cudzilo. “What actually would happen in a crisis versus, you know, something maybe regional. The clear lines of responsibility and delineation of what you’re expected to do as a commercial provider, versus what you’re not expected to do.”

With the increasing dependence on commercial satellites from government agencies, the line between military and civilian targets in space is becoming blurred. Experts have expressed concerns about commercial operators becoming targets in conflicts.

Jablonsky also addressed the challenges of establishing a market for commercial satellite services to enhance defense capabilities. He cautioned against predicting economic incentives and capacity fluctuations, urging the government to consider pricing strategies and market dynamics.

The lack of incentives for space exploration investments is another challenge. John Springmann, senior vice president of Tomorrow.io, said there is a need to balance government requirements with commercial interests.

“One of the keys is understanding what the commercial incentives are, which is ultimately revenue, and that commercial companies are accountable to their board and to their investors,” said Springmann. “I think it’s a win-win to enable this innovative industry and to acknowledge that many of the commercial outlooks on these huge markets for the observation, really haven’t come to fruition, commercially.”

Overclassification also remains an ongoing challenge, despite Pentagon efforts to ensure information and technology are classified appropriately for cooperation with allies and private sector partners. Col. Richard A. Kniseley, senior materiel leader for the Commercial Space Office said this can still be a hurdle when working with private companies.

“We need to really crack the nut and figure out the best model to get these companies more clearances, or at least have visibility into the requirements,” said Kniseley, giving an example of companies not being able to obtain a clearance without a contract, yet lacking the knowledge of the government’s requirements to secure a contract.

This issue also ties in with trust between the military and the commercial sector.

“You could write hundreds and hundreds of pages of contracts and clauses, what you really need is to get to the nub of the issue,” said Jablonsky. “You have to have a high degree of trust between the industry participants and the government officials about what that’s eventually going to look like.”

There has been progress on that front. Industry officials talked about the increased opportunities for private firms to collaborate with the government in recent years, as well as eased regulations. As the Space Force prepares for the great power competition with China, its commercial strategy is anticipated to refine the guidelines addressing some of these issues and serve as a clear catalyst.

“We absolutely are going to leverage industry in the future,” Saltzman said. “We know we don’t have the best ideas inside the military on what technologies maybe an adversary would use against us, or which ones might be a true force multiplier for us to use. I expect industry to maybe have some ideas about that.”

Five Months In, Guardians Give Integrated Mission Deltas Rave Reviews

Feb. 16, 2024 | By David Roza

AURORA, Colo.—About five months after the Space Force stood up two Integrated Mission Deltas (IMDs) to bridge the gap between operations, development, and sustainment specialists, the commanders of those Deltas say the shift has been a success, allowing their troops to keep much closer pace with technological changes, a decisive factor in the space domain.

“The ability to combine those units under a single umbrella, to be able to focus on unified mission readiness, has paid some tremendous benefits to this point,” Col. Andrew Menschner, commander of the Position, Navigation, and Timing Delta (Provisional) said Feb. 13 at the AFA Warfare Symposium.

“Now as the single commander responsible for near-term acquisition and operations, I can set the team’s priorities so that they have a focus on delivering the next generation of capabilities.”

The initial experiments have gone so well that the Space Force is evaluating which of its Deltas to try integrating next.

“I think if I were to ask all the Delta commanders in the room who wants to go next, probably all the hands would go up,” said Col. Carl Bottolfson, director of the Futures & Integration Directorate at Space Force headquarters. “This is something that the community is fully embracing.”

integrated mission delta — Col. Carl Bottolfson, Director, Futures & Integration Directorate, Headquarters U.S. Space Force, speaks on a panel with moderator Maj. Gen. Kimberly Crider, USAF (Ret.), Col. Nicole M. Petrucci, Commander, Space Delta 3, and Col. Andrew S. Menschner, Commander, Position, Navigation, and Timing Delta (Provisional), at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo. Feb. 13, 2024. (Jud McCrehin/Staff)

Unity of Command

When Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman first unveiled the IMD concept in September, he sold it as a way to cut down on organizational seams. Operators in the space, cyber, and intelligence fields typically fall under Space Operations Command (SpOC), while engineers and program managers fall under Space Systems Command (SSC). That separation can slow the rate at which operators provide feedback to developers and vice versa in order to maintain and improve systems, but IMDs bring those career fields together under one command team.

“The point is giving the commander or the command team in particular all of the levers of readiness that he or she or that team needs to prepare their forces for combat,” Bottolfson explained. “The big goal here of course is to be able to better achieve space superiority and provide those effects to the joint warfighter.”

Speed is everything in the space domain, said Col. Nicole Petrucci, commander of Space Delta 3.

“The nation that can cycle technology into military advantage faster will win,” she said at the AFA Warfare Symposium. “That’s period dot, that’s how it goes.”

The two integrated mission deltas cover electromagnetic warfare (EW) and position, navigation, and timing (PNT). The EW integrated mission delta is not a new unit. Instead, the EW sustainment offices that currently reside in SSC were realigned to Space Delta 3, the current operational EW Space Delta overseen by SpOC.

Petrucci said the day-to-day of life at Space Delta 3 was largely unchanged save for the addition of a sustainment team for one weapons system and the official adoption of an intelligence detachment. More sustainment support is on its way, but it’s already made an impact.

“It allows us to take those minor advantages and turn them into major advantages,” she said. “Because we own sustainment, we can say ‘hey, these are things we want to do with the system, these are the things we need to stay relevant, this is how we’re going to keep that military advantage.’”

Meanwhile, the PNT integrated mission delta is entirely new. Those operators used to share Space Delta 8 with satellite communications operators, but under the new system, PNT operators have their own Delta and work alongside PNT sustainers. At a major test readiness event for a next-generation operational control system, the PNT Delta could for the first time have operators come in to give feedback on whether the system was ready for the next round of testing, Menschner said.

An acquisitions officer for most of his career, the colonel used to hear plenty of references to “the operator perspective” in meetings, but rarely was there an actual operator in the room. The IMDs fix that problem and shave months off the process for testing new systems and training operators on them.

“The fact that we’re able to get operators hands on a system before it formally comes to them has paid tremendous benefits,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Delta’s new scope of responsibilities—from launching GPS III satellites to testing, operating, and sustaining them and the ground systems—seems to have energized its members, Menscher noted.

“It’s been great for our [company grade officers] and young enlisted to see a broad spectrum of opportunities out there that they might be able to see themselves working long-term in,” he said. “I predict it’ll be a great thing for retention.”

SpaceX Space Force GPS III launch — Silhouetted against the rising sun, a Falcon-9 rocket carrying the GPS III-6 satellite aboard lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Lift-off occurred at 7:24 a.m. EST, Jan. 18, 2023. Photo courtesy of SpaceX

Future Moves

Though the Space Force is considering integrating future Deltas, the exact nature of that integration may vary.

“I hear, ‘That worked for PNT and EW, but that’s never going to work for my mission area,’” Menscher said. “It’s going to look different in your mission area, but that’s the flexibility built into the IMD construct … you can make the right decision for your mission area.”

Even at the PNT and EW deltas, there are still kinks to work out. One challenge is nailing down exactly when a new system transfers from the “system deltas,” which Saltzman announced a month after revealing the IMDs.

Like the IMDs, the new system deltas combine personnel from different areas and are paired to mission areas such as PNT and EW. The system deltas fall under Space Systems Command, where they focus more on the early side of the acquisition cycle before transferring a new system to the IMDs, where the focus is on “we have metal being bent and we’re trying to get it to the field faster,” Bottolfson explained. But the exact time when the transfer occurs is uncertain.

“Instead of a hand-off, it’s more of a handshake,” the colonel said.

Still, the first two IMDs prove “this is a worthwhile concept and that we want to scale this to the rest of the force,” he added.

When will that scaling up occur? “Soon,” he said.

What Does the Future Look Like for Battle Managers?

Feb. 16, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

AURORA, Colo.—As the Air Force’s command and control enterprise starts a massive transformation, the generals leading the charge say they have no doubt the service will always need battle managers. But how those battle managers will transition from today’s C2 platforms to tomorrow’s technology remains an open question.

“I think there will be an even higher demand signal for battle managers, not necessarily air battle managers, but just battle managers in general,” said Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Clayton, director of the Advanced Battle Management System Cross-Functional Team during the AFA Warfare Symposium. “That skill set and that transition, I think, will be hugely important going forward.”

The transition will be difficult, said Heather Penney, senior resident fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. The Air Force has already completely retired its fleet of E-8C JSTARS aircraft and is steadily winnowing its E-3 Sentry AWACS fleet, as well. Those platforms will be replaced with space-based assets and the E-7 Wedgetail, but the first Wedgetail will not join the fleet until 2027. Multiple officials noted during the symposium that negotiations with manufacturer Boeing have been “hard” and “challenging,” suggesting delays are possible.

What happens between now and then, therefore, is critical for officers trained to do C2 on those specific platforms.

U.S. Airmen with the 116th Air Control Wing, Georgia Air National Guard, sign an engine of an E-8C Joint STARS for its last mission at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, Sept. 21, 2023. The JSTARS have been in service since 2002. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Jeff Rice)

“In the Air Force, our manpower billets are tied to our platforms,” Penney said during a panel discussion. “And there’s a serious gap before we field E-7, which may lead key bands of battle managers with no option except to get out.”

Last April, Col. Joshua Koslov, commander of the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, voiced similar concerns about EW talent: “We build electronic warfare officers based on platforms, and that’s not the best way to do that,” Koslov said then. “As we divest platforms or divest crew members off of platforms, your pool of electronic warfare officers gets a lot smaller.”

According to the Air Force’s latest data, more than 2,400 enlisted Airmen and 1,800 officers are employed in the C2/BM career fields—a highly specialized skill that experts have often described as an “art.”

Clayton and Brig. Gen. Luke Cropsey, the Integrating Program Executive Officer for command, control, communications, and battle management (C3BM), say they are trying to introduce a more scientific approach, crafting a model that breaks down battle management into 13 specific “sub-functions.”

Clayton said that model will be domain and level agnostic.

That is a key shift, Cropsey said: “This distinction between strategic, tactical, and operational C2 is becoming increasingly less helpful. At the end of the day, the decisions, the data flows, and who has access to them are becoming increasingly important.”

In the future, they say, battle managers won’t be tied to platforms and the technical solutions will be more common across the enterprise, enabling data to flow more easily. New computer systems and more flexible, robust software is already in the testing and experimenting phase, Cropsey and Clayton said.

“Those 13 sub-functions of battle management are already being taught as part of the syllabus to ensure that going forward, the next generation of air battle managers will be able to have those skill sets,” Clayton said. Among teaching the transformational battle management model is the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, the service’s premier warfighting schoolhouse.

Battle management will become more demanding and complex as the Air Force evolves its Agile Combat Employment concept, in which teams of Airmen disperse to small or austere locations and move quickly.

“The more that we start to experiment and test out ACE across the world, we’re going to have an even higher demand signal for people who have been critical thinking skills to make those battle management decisions in the future,” Clayton said. “And we’re going to have to continue to foster that.”

Russian Anti-Satellite Weapon Disclosure Highlights Space Force Warnings

Feb. 16, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

Disclosures about a new Russian anti-satellite weapon have thrust military space capabilities into the international spotlight and created a sensation among lawmakers, media, and the public.

On Feb. 14, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement warning of a “serious national security threat.” A day later, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed media reports that the danger involved an anti-satellite weapon the Russians have been developing.

While Kirby noted that the system is not yet operational, he also noted that launching it would violate an international treaty that bans the deployment of nuclear weapons in space. “It would be space-based and it would be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty to which more than 130 countries have signed up to, including Russia,” Kirby said.

Though unclassified details about Russia’s new anti-satellite system have been scarce, the threat to U.S. satellites is not a new one. The Space Force has been warning about the growing danger for years.

“We’re seeing continual development and operationalizing” of nefarious space capabilities by Russia and China, Chief of Space Operation Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said Feb. 13 at the AFA Warfare Symposium, before the most recent public revelations. “Very concerning. Extremely concerning. Give me another adjective.”

One word Saltzman did not use was “surprise.” The Space Force has increasingly emphasized that space is now a contested domain and that both Russia and China has been working on weapons to threaten America’s satellites. It has often cited Russia’s 2021 anti-satellite (ASAT) test as an example of “counterspace” capabilities. In turn, the U.S. committed in 2022 to not conduct direct-asset kinetic ASAT tests and has pushed for a global ban on such tests—so far, without success.

The U.S. has taken some important steps to make its space assets harder to target. The Space Development Agency is launching many small satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO), part of a general philosophy to move away from relying on a relatively small number of satellites in other orbits, such geosynchronous-Earth orbit (GEO), which the USSF considers increasingly risky. The Space Force now views itself as a fighting force, a mission that was underscored with the Department of the Air Force’s re-optimization efforts.

“Previously, in a simpler time, you would put a large, exquisite satellite in space that had lots of capabilities,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said Feb. 15. “That’s a single point of failure versus going to much more numerous smaller satellites that are less expensive, that can be replaced more quickly, thus making it harder to take down a system, you know, in one fell swoop.”

But Russia and China are not standing still either.

“Russia continues to train its military space elements, and field new anti-satellite weapons to disrupt and degrade U.S. and allied space capabilities,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in its 2023 threat assessment. “It is developing, testing, and fielding an array of nondestructive and destructive counterspace weapons—including jamming and cyberspace capabilities, directed energy weapons, on-orbit capabilities, and ground-based ASAT capabilities—to try to target U.S. and allied satellites.”

Russia’s new anti-satellite system has become a growing concern within the White House. “Our general knowledge of Russian pursuit of this kind of capability goes back many, many months, if not a few years,” Kirby said. “But only in recent weeks now has the intelligence community been able to assess with a higher sense of confidence exactly how Russia continues to pursue it.”

No arms control talks between the U.S. and Russia are currently underway, and the prospects of negotiating an end to the Russian threat are not good, experts say. Asked about Kremlin charges that disclosures about its anti-satellite weapons are a White House ploy to build Congressional support for aid to Ukraine, Kirby gave a one word answer.

“Bollocks,” he said.

But the situation has highlighted another need: an independent military service focused on space, Ryder said.

“In light of growing threats by strategic competitors in space, U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force were established several years ago to maintain a dedicated focus on this vital domain and to ensure that we have trained and prepared military space professionals whose mission it is to protect and defend America’s interest in space,” Ryder said. “We will take appropriate action in defense of the nation.”

Air Force Says It Is Not Aware of B-21 Quality Problems Linked to Spirit AeroSystems

Feb. 15, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force says it doesn’t know of any problems with the work Spirit AeroSystems has done on the B-21 bomber but won’t say if it has launched any investigations of its own into the subcontractor’s processes.

“I haven’t heard anything about a problem with the B-21” due to Spirit’s subcontractor work, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo., this week.

Spirit is under scrutiny after a Jan. 5 accident involving a door plug the company installed on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 fuselage blew out mid-flight, which led to a grounding of the 737-MAX 9 fleet until individual aircraft could be inspected for similar flaws. Spirit was already fighting a shareholder class-action lawsuit, lodged in December, alleging an “excessive” amount of work defects at the company, based on whistleblower reports.

Spirit is one of only a handful of B-21 subcontractors the Air Force has permitted Northrop Grumman, the B-21 prime, to name. The others are RTX’s Pratt & Whitney, Janicki Industries, Collins Aerospace, GKN Aerospace, and BAE Systems. The specific work Spirit does on the B-21 has not been identified, as a matter of general secrecy about the program.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating production processes at Spirit and Boeing in the wake of the Jan. 5 accident.

“Spirit AeroSystems has been working closely with our customer since the event with Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 5,” according to a company statement. “A Spirit team is now supporting the NTSB’s investigation directly. As a company, we remain focused on the quality of each aircraft structure that leaves our facilities.”

An Air Force spokesperson said the service continues to “monitor safety issues.”

The Air Force “relies on the Defense Contract Management Agency to ensure all aircraft meet the DOD’s stringent quality standards before it accepts aircraft from any industry partner,” the spokesperson said.

“DCMA supports the B-21 program through their on-site quality specialists at Spirit facilities, as at many other B-21 suppliers,” the spokesperson added. “The DCMA’s specialists have direct access to Spirit quality management systems and data, as mandated via the B-21 contract and in accordance with the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation. Suppliers must also submit to regular DCMA inspections throughout the manufacturing process and before acceptance of products, ensuring quality escapes and process issues are caught early.”

The spokesperson did not offer a response when asked if any Air Force-specific scrutiny of Spirit is underway as a result of the recent quality escapes.

Spirit is also a subcontractor to Boeing on the Air Force’s KC-46 tanker, for which it provides the forward fuselage, strut and nacelle components, and the fixed leading edge of the wings. On its website, Spirit says it “assisted in the design of the next-generation tanker,” which is replacing the KC-135.

The shareholder lawsuit against Spirit alleges that a veteran quality manager at the company was asked to hide quality problems, and that the company retaliated against him when he refused.

The suit charges Spirit with having a corporate culture that emphasizes “pushing out product over quality.”

The first B-21 made its inaugural flight in November 2023, and the Air Force has acknowledged that it has made at least one test flight since then. Northrop received a low-rate initial production contract for the B-21 shortly after first flight, Pentagon acquisition chief William LaPlante announced in late January.

Air Force Field-Testing New Tactical Command & Control Modules

Feb. 15, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

AURORA, Colo.—The Air Force has acquired, fielded, and started experimenting with an advanced new command-and-control node, seeking feedback from Airmen before acquiring hundreds more, the service’s leading C2 officials said at the AFA Warfare Symposium.

The Tactical Operations Center-Light (TOC-L) is a computer system that does “wicked good fusion data integration … across 800 different feeds that are specific to air battle managers and the air picture,” said Brig. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey, the Air Force’s command, control, communications, and battle management czar.

The Air Force has 16 TOC-L prototypes in field testing today.

“I’ll call it the basic building block for where we’re going for infrastructure for C2,” Cropsey said. The systems “are being integrated in a number of joint COCOM-level exercises as well as service-sponsored exercises, so that we’re giving the operator an opportunity to go muck around with it and figure out what works, what doesn’t work, what we need to modify… And then we’re going to move into a phase two of that program very quickly, where we’ll actually start scaling that capability out.”

How many TOC-L kits the Air Force will need is not yet clear, Cropsey said, but the numbers will be in the hundreds, not thousands.

Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Clayton, director of the Advanced Battle Management System Cross-Functional Team, said the Air Force is sending a TOC-L system to the Army’s Project Convergence “Capstone 4” exercise, which runs Feb. 23-March 20 . Project Convergence exercises focus on the Pentagon’s wider Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts to accelerate sensors-to-shooter decision making.

That kit will be running another of Cropsey and Clayton’s major projects: Cloud-Based Command and Control (CBC2), which fuses data from 750 radar feeds into a single interface and uses artificial intelligence to help battle managers choose and execute a path of action.

Cropsey touted the rollout of CBC2 to U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command last fall at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The this week, five months later, he revealed that the system is now operational for NORAD’s eastern air defense sector and Canadian air defense sector, “with more on the way,” he added.

Three members of the Western Air Defense Sector’s 225th Air Defense Squadron tested the ability to execute Cloud-Based Command and Control (CBC2) for the first time in a geographically separated location at Camp Rilea, Ore., last April. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Anthony Milton

CBC2 and TOC-L are relatively low-profile programs when compared to billion-dollar aircraft buys, but Cropsey and Clayton said that’s by design.

“You’re not going to see what I’ll call big, splashy, major awards for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, as much as you’re going to see lots of very targeted, specific kinds of works that are coming out to do a thing over here, a thing over there, do some integration, present another capability, and then work it back into the operational scene as quickly as we can,” Cropsey said.

Cropsey cited the Distributed Battle Management Node, “an element that goes out and grabs these individual pieces and integrates them into a single capability offering,” as an example. He said the Air Force is soliciting industry for Phase II of that program, even as Phase I prototypes are about to start arriving at air control squadrons, Cropsey said.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made fielding operationally relevant C2 capabilities one of his seven Operational Imperatives for the department two years ago, and Cropsey and Clayton have emphasized for months that they are not simply conceptualizing future capabilities, but rolling out real solutions.

“Seven years ago, it was a lot of lightning bolts on charts,” Clayton said. “Those days are behind us. We have actual stuff in the field that is allowing the warfighters to test and experiment with it and have that decision advantage today.”

Adapt or Die: Big Air Force Changes Demand Buy-In from Within 

Feb. 15, 2024 | By Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, USAF (Ret.)

At the AFA Warfare Symposium this week, the Department of the Air Force announced 24 decisions stemming from its “Re-optimization for Great Power Competition” review. Now, as the department starts the process of implementing these major changes, former Air Force Futures boss retired Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote offers his perspective in this commentary.

When a successful organization faces disruptive change, it must adapt or decline. That is the choice facing our Air Force today. Others have been here and failed. Remember Kodak? Pan Am? Blockbuster? All these companies led their respective industries, but instead of adapting to disruption in their operating environment, they doubled down on existing ways of doing business. Today, they are memories.

The Air Force has been disrupted. The years of assumed air dominance are over. Our country’s focus has shifted. Key technologies have proliferated. The competition has caught up. A worthy adversary has studied our vulnerabilities and threatens to expose them. The force is not ready for this environment. If we double down on the old ways, we will decline. As Secretary Kendall made clear repeatedly this week at the AFA Warfare Symposium, “We are out of time.”

The good news is that senior leaders—including the Secretary, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman—have identified what needs to change and are moving out. There are plans in place to address each of seven operational imperatives defined over the past two years. Budgets have been reworked and submitted—though Congress has been slow to enact. And now, a pivotal set of organizational reforms has been announced.

We should not underestimate the moral courage and dogged determination required to lead the force to this point. Leading change is exhausting if you do it right. These senior leaders—and the staffs that support them—have paid the price to get here.

These changes outlined this week to “re-optimize” the Air Force and Space Force for great power competition are absolutely necessary. Many come straight from extensive wargaming and analysis. The focus on preparing wings for combat is correct. The plan to reinstitute large-scale exercises, especially in the Pacific, will help these wings get ready and enhance deterrence. The stand-up of an Integrated Capabilities Command has been needed for years to give tomorrow’s Airmen what they need to win.

These are the most significant changes since the aftermath of the Cold War. The key now is implementation. This is where Gen. Allvin has nailed the theme: “Follow through.“

Looking back years from now, we will see many of these changes as milestones along a journey. The Airmen Development Command and the Integrated Capabilities Command will expand in mission to be critical catalysts for an adapting force. I believe both will eventually be led by four-star officers to reflect their critical portfolios. The re-introduction of warrant officers combined with an independent Air Forces Cyber Command may portend the eventual stand-up of a cyber service, which I believe is likely. The definition of wings as the “unit of action” along with the accompanying focus will lead to a new—and much more accurate—measurement of how much force we have vs. what is needed.

One valid concern, however, is the increase in bureaucratic complexity due to the proliferation of organizations and commands. Many new organizations are being created. Eventually, the Air Force will need to balance this by consolidating or decommissioning existing organizations. Otherwise, the service risks paralysis by diffusion of responsibility and accountability. In the past, this has stifled change by encouraging extreme tribalism, resource guarding, soft vetoes, and weak consensus. An Air Force focused on China needs a more focused organizational structure.

Congress is also focused on China, and they will likely endorse most of these changes because they don’t involve significant movements of people. But Congress may balk at standing up a new Program Assessment and Evaluation office in the Secretariat. In recent months, members of Congress have expressed concern that the Pentagon’s existing Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office is hindering DOD modernization. They will likely question the need for adding an equivalent at the service level.

The main impediment to implementing change will not be Congress, however. It will be institutional resistance, driven by service members and civilians who are uncomfortable with change and allow their discomfort to descend into cynicism.

Some will employ bureaucratic resistance. They will say this is too much and too fast. They will warn against breaking the service to fix it. They will question why the dominant air force of the last 70 years must change so radically. They may even try to imply that those leading change are betraying our legacy. If you don’t believe me, look at the recent experience of the Marine Corps, where the drive to modernize the force for Indo-Pacific conflict has been met with a public revolt among retired Marine leaders.

The antidote to such resistance is consistent and near-continuous communication. Leaders at all levels must understand the “why” and the “what,” think through the “how,” and communicate clear expectations to their teams. If this happens, the Air Force can adapt to the changing environment and win the fight that looms just over the horizon. If not … well, we know how that story ends.

Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, USAF (Ret.) was Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Integration, and Requirements from 2020-2023. He now serves as an advisor to the Special Competitive Studies Project, Dcode, Pallas Advisors, and the Atlantic Council’s Software-Defined Warfare Commission.

Space Force Combat Squadrons Aim for New Way to Deploy in Place

Feb. 15, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

AURORA, Colo.—Just as the Air Force is switching up how it packages troops for deployments, the Space Force will implementing “combat squadrons,” establishing a means for divvying up operations and readiness functions for space units that usually deploy in place, leaders said the AFA Warfare Symposium.

Today, Space Operations Command presents forces to combatant commands, typically U.S. Space Command, as full squadrons and deltas, through its newly established Space Forces-Space component, commanded by Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess. That means unit commanders must juggle operations—flying satellites, gathering intelligence, conducting cyber work—with day-to-day readiness issues.

“If I need this number of elements to do the mission 24/7 and I force present them, well, then you need a number of elements over here to get ready to do that,” Schiess told reporters. “What we’ve done in the past is they’re both doing that all the time. And so that gets to … exhaustion—‘I just came off a shift and now I’ve got to go to training. And I’ve got a new person coming in and I’ve got to get them ready.’”

The combat squadrons concept will break down units into smaller crews and rotate them through phases under the Space Force Generation Model, which designates phases that units must cycle through.

Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, Commander, United States Space Forces-Space | Air & Space Forces photo

Once presented to SPACECOM, a squadron no longer works for Space Operations Command, Schiess said. “They work for the Space Forces-Space and they’re doing the mission for that. Also during that time, they don’t have to worry about bringing on new capabilities ,they don’t have to worry about training new folks to get ready to feed into the mission to be able to do that. They have their crew that is ready to do their mission.”

Brig. Gen. Devin Pepper, vice commander of Space Operations Command, said SpOC intends to follow an “eight-crew model.”

“So five of the crews, whatever system they’re operating, will be in what’s called the combat period, and the other three crews will be in what we call the Prepare and Ready phase,” Pepper told reporters. “Those are all the phases you need to take leave, go to school, do life, so to speak, and then also do the training that you need to get ready to prepare for the combat period.”

The Space Force already follows a similar system for its electronic warfare teams, and it’s similar to the Air Force’s four-phased approach to operational readiness under the Air Force Force Generation model, or AFFORGEN.

The commander of a combat squadron “may be a captain or a lieutenant now who’s responsible for that crew that’s in the combat period,” Pepper said. Meanwhile, regular squadron and delta commanders can focus completely on readiness and training.

When troops aren’t physically deploying, the change is partially just about a mindset shift said Schiess, who compared it to his first job in the Air Force, when he was as a missileer.

“I was part of the squadron, I got prepared, I would do training,” Schiess said. “But when I went to the alert facility, I didn’t work for the Air Force anymore, I worked for Strategic Command.”

The Department of the Air Force push to designate deployable or mission-focused “units of action” for both the Air Force and Space Force is part of its larger effort to re-optimize for great power competition. But there are still details that need to be worked out—Schiess noted that the USSF is still working on the naming conventions for combat squadrons.

“We’re still working through, does that become the 2nd Combat Squadron or 2nd Space Operation?” he said.