Congress Prepares to Enact NDAA After Trump’s Veto

Congress Prepares to Enact NDAA After Trump’s Veto

Dec. 23, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

President Donald J. Trump vetoed the $741 billion defense policy bill on Dec. 23 after threatening to derail the bipartisan annual legislation. Congress has pledged to override the veto in votes next week.

“I am returning, without my approval, H.R. 6395 … My administration recognizes the importance of the act to our national security. Unfortunately, the act fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions. It is a ‘gift’ to China and Russia,” the President wrote.

The fiscal 2021 legislation authorizes $740.5 billion in spending for the Pentagon and other national security programs through Sept. 30, 2021. It hit last-minute hurdles as Trump demanded Congress include an unrelated provision to end legal protections for social media companies. He also opposes the bill over its language to start the process of renaming military installations that honor Confederate icons, like Fort Bragg, N.C.

The National Defense Authorization Act was set to become law at midnight Dec. 24 if President Donald J. Trump did not act on it sooner. Both chambers of Congress passed the bill earlier this month, starting a 10-day countdown during which the President needed to sign or reject the measure before it was automatically enacted.

The NDAA is seen as must-pass legislation because it enables specialty combat pay that affects thousands of military families, among other key provisions. It has been signed into law every year for nearly six decades with bipartisan support and the backing of the President.

The House and Senate are respectively set to return to Washington and hold override votes on Dec. 28 and 29, a House aide confirmed. Another congressional staffer said a “pocket veto”— in which a presidential rejection kills a bill because Congress is out of session and cannot override the decision—is not in play because lawmakers can accept a veto during pro forma sessions.

There’s no hard deadline to hold those override votes, the congressional staffer said Dec. 23, though the arrival of a new Congress on Jan. 3, 2021, does complicate matters. If the NDAA has not wrapped up by then, lawmakers could briefly delay gaveling in the new session until the bill is finalized. If still not done once the 117th Congress takes office, the staffer believes that a new group of lawmakers would have to retrace the steps of the legislative process to again send it to Trump’s desk.

If the NDAA is not in place by New Year’s Day, the lapse could derail funding for the Navy’s Columbia-class nuclear submarines, civilian employee pay, military construction projects, and more, the congressional staffer said. It may also halt operations at Armed Forces Retirement Homes.

“The late decision to veto the NDAA puts our service members at a disadvantage in an environment of unprecedented peer threats to our security,” said AFA President and retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright. “Our Airmen and Guardians—and also Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines—volunteered to die, if necessary, in defense of our country. That’s their jobs. It’s the jobs of our elected leaders to fund their activities. We thank those leaders and their staffs for their hard work and leadership so far. They now owe our our warfighters and the American people an NDAA that ensures our nation’s security. They are collectively responsible for the unprecedented situation we now find ourselves in—and they are therefore collectively responsible for resolving it.” 

Trump’s decision has frustrated Republican allies who tried to convince him to follow through on signing the bill.

“The NDAA has become law every year for 59 years straight because it’s absolutely vital to our national security and our troops. This year must not be an exception. Our men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform shouldn’t be denied what they need—ever,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a Dec. 23 release. 

Inhofe urged lawmakers to find another legislative vehicle to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as Trump wanted to do in the NDAA.

“Trump has made it clear that he does not care about the needs of our military personnel and their families,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), head of the House Armed Services Committee. “If the FY21 NDAA does not become law, more than 100,000 federal employees will be deprived of the paid parental leave benefits they deserve, necessary military construction projects will not move forward on schedule, and our service members who are in harm’s way defending our country’s principles will not have access to the hazard pay they are owed.”

Defense industry players also quickly began to decry the move.

“There is no more essential duty for the American government than to ensure the safety and security of its people. The President’s veto undermines our national security preparedness and jeopardizes the jobs of Americans who make up our defense industrial base at a time when the country is in crisis,” Aerospace Industries Association President and Chief Executive Officer Eric Fanning said in a release. “We urge Congress to prioritize national security and override this veto.”

First enacting defense funds—part of the massive omnibus spending bill also awaiting Trump’s signature—would stave off some of the problems prompted by a lack of NDAA, the staffer said. The omnibus appropriations bill could continue paying for programs whose authorization under previous legislation has not yet expired, but spending for other items must stop without a new policy bill in place to allow it.

The future of that $1.4 trillion omnibus, together with the nearly $900 billion coronavirus pandemic relief legislation, was thrown into question Dec. 22 when Trump released a video criticizing pieces of the package. The Republican President called for $2,000 economic stimulus checks to support Americans instead of the agreed-upon $600 payments, which reportedly surprised even his own legislative team spearheading the effort. Democrats also back the larger sum.

It’s unclear what the timeline is for Trump to approve or veto the so-called “coronabus” package, passed by the House and Senate Dec. 21. A 10-day clock for automatic enactment, not including Sundays, starts once Congress sends the paperwork to the White House for Trump’s consideration. That process could also stretch into the next Congress, which typically does not have to juggle these issues with both a new set of lawmakers and a new President in town.

The federal government remains open through Dec. 28 under another continuing resolution while the omnibus is in limbo—three months after the fiscal year began Oct. 1. Lawmakers will need to pass another CR to avoid a shutdown unless the spending package is enacted in time.

“President Trump should sign the bill and get [House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] to agree to the $2,000,” Henry Connelly, communications director for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said Dec. 23 when asked about potential next steps for the omnibus-pandemic relief legislation. 

The Department of the Air Force’s $169 billion wish list was largely granted in the 2021 authorization and appropriations bills. Lawmakers green-lit many Air Force and Space Force priorities but did reverse plans to phase out production of key aircraft like the MQ-9 Reaper drone and to ditch the A-10 attack plane.

Congress approved a spending bill with $32.8 billion for Active-duty Airmen, $33.5 billion for Active-duty operations and maintenance, $45.3 billion for procurement, and $36.4 billion for research and development in the base budget. The Space Force’s base budget would receive $2.5 billion for O&M, $2.3 billion for procurement, and $10.5 billion for R&D as well.

Millions more dollars were offered under the Overseas Contingency Operations budget intended for counterterrorism missions.

Lawmakers also call for periodic briefings from Air Force officials on the service’s plan to address its pilot shortage, as well as a C-130 fleet management plan, a strategy for the Advanced Battle Management System, and more.

A more unusual provision directs the Air Force Secretary to work with the National Institutes of Health to rehome chimpanzees that live on Air Force property. The Alamogordo Daily News recently reported that two chimps used for experiments at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., have died, leaving 37 more at an NIH-run facility on base.

Nearly 100 chimpanzees have moved to a sanctuary from Holloman’s Alamogordo Primate Facility, the publication said.

How Dover Air Force Base is Accelerating Change

How Dover Air Force Base is Accelerating Change

Dec. 23, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del.—When new Air Force and Air Mobility Command leaders called on Airmen to “accelerate change” and expand their capabilities beyond their sole duty, Airmen here were already working on two major efforts to broaden their skill sets.

The 436th Airlift Wing opened two facilities and training programs within six months of each other in 2020—the Tactical and Leadership Nexus (TALN) training facility and the Bedrock innovation hub, aimed at pushing Airmen to improve their combat skills and to innovate in new, high-tech ways.

“I think that the culture has been shifting, and the empowerment is there,” Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Jaqueline D. Van Ovost said during a recent visit here. “And they’re excited when they’re empowered.”

Van Ovost, in outlining her priorities for the command in October, said AMC needs “multi-capable Airmen” who can accomplish tasks outside their core Air Force Specialty Code, such as providing security for aircraft at austere bases. The goal is to develop “digitally adept Airmen” who can fuse data, analytics, and emerging technology to help the command move faster and smarter.

“In general, our Airmen get it,” she told Air Force Magazine in an interview. “They get that things have shifted.”

In July, Dover cut the ribbon on the TALN training facility—a makeshift collection of small buildings serving as classrooms and a “town” of shipping containers serving as a makeshift village for combat training. Airmen from various AFSCs across the base are tapped for a one-day, 10-hour training course that is designed to give them a quick run through of how to act when things go bad at an austere base.

An Airman trains in an opposing force combat scenario as part of the Tactical and Leadership Nexus training program on Dec. 9, 2020, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The new program is focused on training Airmen in combat skills outside of their regular duties. Staff photo by Brian Everstine.

The day starts with four hours of instruction on self-aid and buddy care; chemical biological, radiological, and nuclear training; weapons; and the ability to think quickly and critically under fire.

“The biggest part of the TALN day is the leadership and critical thinking,” said Master Sgt. Kevin Veneman, TALN flight chief, in a release issued when the facility opened. “They get you thinking outside the box and to think about what your next option is.”

After the classroom instruction ends, the more intense training begins. This includes quickly donning a Mission Oriented Protective Posture suit and mask. They are then exposed to tear gas in a confined space to ensure the suit is fitted correctly, and if it’s not, they will learn what CS gas feels like in the real world. Airmen then move through a “leadership reaction course,” a series of obstacles and puzzles where Airmen must lead each other through.

The final, and biggest, event of the day is when the group is broken up into two opposing sides to “fight” each other as opposing forces in a combat scenario. One team is the attacking force, attempting to move through the simulated village, while providing combat aid to dummies representing casualties. The other team must defend their side. Both are armed with M4s or M16s and sim rounds firing paint.

In this scenario, ranks don’t matter. Leaders emerge when pressure starts, and Airmen have to work together to fight through the scenario.

The goal of TALN, which stems back to a 2019 Jersey Devil exercise in which Dover Airmen’s combat skills were shown to be lacking, is for Airmen to have a basic understanding of combat skills that could be needed if deployed to an Agile Combat Employment-type location and are pressed to fight. For many Airmen, it is the first time they’ve held a weapon or been exposed to other combat skills since basic training. 

The class started for the wing’s Active Duty Airmen, and could expand to Guard, Reserve, and other services. The initial plan is for Airmen to go through TALN once every three years. The instructors are volunteers from various career fields who received additional combat and weapons training before running the classes. The program cost about $500,000 in all, with members and volunteers working more than 6,000 hours to complete it before classes began in August, according to a release.

While the 436th Airlift Wing is a busy flying wing, with C-17s and C-5s operating at a high operations tempo, Wing Commander Col. Matthew E. Jones said in an interview there has not been a shortage of Airmen signing up and eager to participate.

“We’re learning through this is [that] if they perceive that what they’re doing is value added, it doesn’t feel like something extra,” Jones said, adding that the signup process has shown interest in not only going through the class early but also trying to become future instructors.

On the other side of Dover, away from the ramshackle village and muddy obstacle course, is a brand-new office space designed to look more like a Silicon Valley startup than the drab USAF base office building it once was. 

The space, called Bedrock, is the home of Dover’s innovation hub. Dover chartered its lab in January 2019, following similar efforts at other bases in the Air Force such as the Phoenix Spark Hub at Travis Air Force Base, Calif. The base cut the ribbon on the facility in September, opening it for Airmen from all jobs, along with Key Spouses and other groups, to work together.

The Bedrock facility has a 3D printing hub, a podcast recording studio, several coworking spaces, and a pile of massive beanbags in the middle for Airmen to sit. There’s a small stage reminiscent of TED Talks, and a virtual reality center with devices that allow Airmen to virtually train on C-5s.

The hub has sparked Airmen-developed efforts, such as 3D printing cases for tablets that aircrew use for a fraction of what it would cost to buy specially made commercial versions. Airmen are working on “wicked hard problems that you have out on the flightline, and [they can] bring it here, and keep track, and focus, and make it better,” Van Ovost said. Such facilities have been “popping up around the Air Force … [as] a safe space for them to come and innovate,” she added.

Q&A: USAF’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Engineering, and Force Protection

Q&A: USAF’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Engineering, and Force Protection

Dec. 23, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

Lt. Gen. Warren D. Berry is the deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering, and force protection. His portfolio includes everything from aircraft readiness to base housing. Editorial Director John A. Tirpak spoke with Berry about new logistics concepts, air base defense, and managing the health of the Air Force’s facilities. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can also read more on Berry’s views on resilient and agile logistics in this December Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies forum paper.

Q. The Air Force has been talking a lot about agile combat logistics and logistics under fire. Are they the same thing?

A. Not quite, but they’re absolutely related. The National Defense Strategy gave us this operational problem, “Logistics Under Attack.” We’ve enjoyed years of being able to do resupply and replenishment with little resistance from an adversary, in a permissive or semi-permissive environment. That probably won’t be the case in the future. We understand that the threat will be both kinetic and nonkinetic.

We’ve coalesced around a concept of “persistent logistics.” It has three major lines of effort: posture, sense, and respond. Posture is how we set the theater, do prepositioned equipment, where we put war readiness materiel, and how we sustain it in advance of a potential fight. It’s about … preparing for that non-kinetic attack, disruptive technologies that can be brought to bear, about hardening some of our critical nodes and training Airmen to be more multi-capable; to do more than just their primary job. And it’s about helping our allies and partners, and recognizing the capabilities that they bring.

Then, sensing. We have a lot of data and a lot of information in the logistics space, but we don’t have the capability to catalog and clean it of spurious inputs and understand gaps in data integrity. There are unit codes that tell us what went wrong with a system, or a part, and we need to be able to collate that and turn it into information we can use.

The data are so voluminous that a person in the loop can’t possibly digest it all. We need to make it actionable, even predictive, so we know when the next failure is going to happen on an airplane and anticipate the parts that will be needed. So I need to sense the environment and use those data to help me know what’s going on, logistically.

We need digital modernization to get data that are far more useful to us. You might hear it called Log COP, which is Logistics Common Operating Picture. The goal is to get these data into a secure, resilient system that I can protect and have it available to senior decision-makers so we know the state of play in logistics at virtually any moment. The goal is actionable logistics intelligence that is both proactive and predictive.

Then, I need to respond. But, that response has to be at the speed of relevance to the warfighter, and respond with the broader logistics enterprise; our air logistics complexes, our organic capability, and our defense industrial base. The response may come from artificial intelligence and machine learning or it might be through a different distribution network, or responding in different ways to protect our assets that are deployed in theater. All of that is the conceptual framework for persistent logistics.

We’re looking at that now, and asking ourselves, where are the capability gaps, so we can go to the corporate Air Force to say, these are the capabilities we need to develop to logistically support the fight.

Q. And what are some of those?

A. Autonomous distribution, Agility Prime. We’re also looking at artificial intelligence to push parts to the field instead of waiting for the demand signal; particularly in a situation where communication is degraded. How do I mitigate that? Maybe I get into block-chain-like capabilities, that help me protect my data and give me more of a predictive capability.

There may also be gaps in personnel, training, and doctrine, that we need to fill.

Some we inherently know; others will come to light as we do more study. We may need new forms of distribution, but it has to be in context. In Europe, there’s a robust infrastructure; in the Pacific, you have that tyranny of distance. But, we’re pretty sure we need to do distribution a bit differently. Our logistics common operating picture isn’t where it needs to be.

I’m sure we’re going to find more gaps, such as in runway repair. Gaps in how we do supply kits and posture units with readiness spares packages, so they have what they think they’ll need for a certain duration of a fight. Those are a few.

Q. When will you have a roadmap for all of this?

A. We will finalize the Logistics Under Attack concept in the spring, and we’ll start the capability gap analysis after that. My goal is, by the end of ’21, have the capability gap analysis done so we can begin getting at the things we need.

Q. Pacific Air Forces said it’s examined every theater airfield for possible operating locations, and they’re thinking about a hub-and-spoke distribution concept as USAF moves toward quick deployments to austere fields. Are you involved with that?

A. The regional theater commanders are what I would call the “thought and experiment leaders,” but we are clearly part of that team. We’ve done some exercises, and learned that we need to rethink the footprint that we’re sending with the unit, in terms of the Airmen, and supplies, and equipment. We need to be a little lighter and leaner. Part of that is rethinking those spares packages, so that when a core unit goes to a hub, and then goes out to the spokes after that, they can be self-contained for a short amount of time.

Using all those airfields can really complicate the adversary’s targeting calculus; it gives us a lot more agility and unpredictability. But, I have to support that in a way that I’m not necessarily having to resupply, replenish, and support them on a near-continuous basis.

We need to understand what a multiskilled Airman looks like; what are the complementary skill sets we can really capitalize on, and then come up with a training plan so we don’t put a burden on each individual wing to develop that.

Q. As the Air Force develops this shell game concept, how will you defend these far-flung sites? The Army won’t have enough Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense or Patriots to cover everybody. Is the idea to just get in and get out quickly, or will you be taking some kind of organic defense with you?

A. I think it’s going to be both.

There’s no silver bullet—no best methodology—to protect the force once it’s in the fight. I have to assume there will be some theater protection, but some of our adversaries have pretty deep magazines, and maybe there will be leakage. 

I look at what I can control, and that means looking at it through the lens of point defense. Moving the force under the Agile Combat Employment concept helps with force protection. Beyond that, there’s a spectrum of opportunities to protect the base.

At the low end, it’s things we’ve done in the past: camouflage, concealment, and deception; being opaque about allowing our adversary to see what we’re doing.

Then, I’ve got to protect the perimeter. In many cases, we can rely on the host nation to do that.  It depends on the capability they have, but they’ll be engaged in this conflict as well. Protecting the perimeter also means I have to have situational awareness of the AOR (area of responsibility); sensors and detection capabilities, infrared. I have to give that, in greater volume, to my defenders.

And then I have to look at other capabilities I can put in their hands to counter small unmanned aerial systems.

Q. What’re the key things you need in the next three to five years?

A. I really need to give our defenders that broader battlespace awareness. To see further out, see the threats that are materializing, have command, control, and communications systems, Blue Force tracker, to evolve that capability to make it more robust for them.

Capability against Class 1-3 UAS, working with the Army as executive agent to get that capability in greater volume, that’s near-term.

Further out, it might be directed energy, lasers, that we can use to counter rockets and mortars and things of that nature. But that won’t be available to me in the next year or two.

Q. Do you feel like the Army is giving enough attention and resources to helping you in this regard?

A. Certainly for small counter-UAS, they are. We’ve been working very well with them in the Joint Counter Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office. It’s been pretty collaborative …to get common systems, open architectures so we can all plug in together and share the operating picture. And that feeds into the broader joint all-domain command and control conversation that we’re having. The experience has been pretty positive.

Q. This has been a landmark year for natural disasters: wildfires, hurricanes. What are you doing to harden bases against these calamities?

A. The poster child for air base resiliency efforts would be Tyndall (Air Force Base, Fla.], as a result of Hurricane Michael, and Offutt [Air Force Base, Neb.,] to a smaller degree, with the floods that happened there. We have some milcon projects there to rebuild resiliency to severe weather.

Congress has been very supportive … in our attempt to build Tyndall back to what we need, and not build it back to what we had. We’re taking a different approach to how we’re constructing the base. We’ve modified the design criteria to better account for high-category hurricanes. We’re taking into consideration more stringent design standards in flood plains … to handle 100-year floods.

But we’re also putting sensors on facilities, so I can do predictive maintenance—using the same idea we’re using with airplanes—and putting in smart systems to better control energy consumption.

Across the Air Force, our physical plant value is about $350 billion. I’m not going to be able to make all of it resilient and hurricane- and flood-proof overnight. But all of those design standards go into all our new … renovation and modernization projects.

After Hurricane Michael, Chief of Staff General [David] Goldfein commissioned a Severe Weather Readiness Assessment team to look at that, and treat severe weather as an adversary. They came up with 129 recommendations on how to do a better job, from forecasting to sheltering to evacuation timelines. We completed about 25 percent of that quickly; what I would call the “high reward, low difficulty” ones.  We’re working through the rest, but as you said, this was a heck of a year: We had 30 named storms. Based on some of the actions we took, we came out of it relatively unscathed. It’s not all about design standards, it’s about actions we can take in advance of severe weather. I think we’re on a good path.

Q. Are you comfortable with the resources going to upkeep of facilities, or is USAF digging an even deeper hole?

A. My business in the A4 is sustainment of both weapon systems and infrastructure. Would I like more funding in those areas? Absolutely. We have more mission in the Air Force than we have resources to do it all. So there’s some hard choices to be made.

But we do have an investment strategy to get after our infrastructure. It calls for investing in a different way that helps us get out of our maintenance backlog. We used to fix “worst first,” but in doing that, we put a lot of money toward failed facilities. We had little left over for more routine maintenance on facilities that were in good shape but needed attention. It was the equivalent of changing a couple of engines instead of doing a whole bunch of oil changes, and we kept getting behind the power curve.

Now we’re investing in what we call the “sweet spot” of a facility’s life cycle; putting more money into oil changes, if you will. We’re prioritizing funding for those facilities that are still good. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still putting money toward failed facilities, it’s just a shift in the priority and volume of dollars that go to each. And looking at whether I even need to recapitalize a particular building and maybe use that space differently, getting after a better footprint on the installation.

This is about understanding the inventory you have, the condition of each building and system within the building, and targeting dollars against systems that need repair but have not yet failed.                                                                                                             

Brown: ‘Shame on Us’ if Military Diversity Efforts Falter

Brown: ‘Shame on Us’ if Military Diversity Efforts Falter

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Change is coming to make the Department of the Air Force a more diverse, equitable place—but it won’t happen overnight, the four-star generals in charge of the Air Force and Space Force said in a Dec. 22 town hall on racism and discrimination.

“Shame on us if we miss this opportunity to make a change that’s required across our Air Force to make it better, whether it’s the Air Force or the Space Force,” Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr. said.

The discussion comes the day after the Department of the Air Force released the results of an Inspector General report on racial disparities across the force. A call for anecdotes on racism and inequality earlier this year prompted an avalanche of more than 123,000 responses across more than 27,000 single-spaced pages of feedback, alongside more than 100 in-person interviews.

The investigation confirmed earlier studies and reporting that found Black Airmen and Guardians are treated differently in the military discipline system and when pursuing career development opportunities.

“Varying degrees of disparity were identified in apprehensions, criminal investigations, military justice, administrative separations, placement into occupational career fields, certain promotion rates, officer and civilian professional military educational development, and some leadership opportunities,” the Department of the Air Force said Dec. 21. “The data does not address why racial disparities exist in these areas, and that while the data shows race is a correlating factor, it does not necessarily indicate causality.”

Over the past decade, white Airmen were promoted up the ranks more often than Airmen who are Black or members of other minority groups, according to an Air Force Magazine analysis. Average promotion rates for majors and colonels are more than 5 percentage points higher for white Airmen than Black officers, and the gap widens to around 10 percentage points for lieutenant colonels. Trends are similar in the enlisted force.

Brown said he’s read the 150-page report cover-to-cover five or six times. The document reflects his own experiences as a Black man coming up through the ranks and are “things I’ve actually felt,” he said. The first Black person to serve as the top officer of a U.S. armed force, Brown released his own viral video over the summer detailing his experiences with discrimination and feeling like an outsider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx0HnOTUkVI

It’s far from the first time the Air Force has looked into the issue: The IG team reconsidered 23 past studies and reports on race and demographics in the military as part of the investigation.

So what’s different now? “George Floyd,” Brown said.

“Think about what happened. … Look at all the protests over the course of the summer,” he said of the national unrest sparked by Floyd’s death in May after a white police officer knelt on the Black man’s neck for nearly 9 minutes.

“When those other studies were done, there probably weren’t as many protests,” Brown said. “Think about it: It was 1973 and beyond. So you didn’t have a major national event that focused us on this particular topic, until this summer.”

Floyd’s death has opened the door for difficult conversations about persistent systemic racism across the military and American society at large. Over the summer, Air Force Magazine spoke to several Black service members about their experiences with discrimination during their time in uniform, and their hopes for improvement.

The pilot field that dominates the Air Force’s considerations and leadership remains overwhelmingly white and male, and the service has recently announced changes to height requirements and aircraft design that will allow more women into the cockpit. But there’s also more to do to make aviators more racially diverse.

“When I was a captain, I did an interview for Air Force Times, and it talked about the percentage of African Americans that were pilots. It was 2 percent. That was 30 years ago,” Brown said. “You know what it is right now? It’s still 2 percent.”

While the Air Force can diversify its top leadership by pulling the best candidates from career fields other than pilots, Brown cautioned the solution needs to be more holistic.

“Will the shape of the Air Force change in the future as we look at cyber, information operations, and other areas? I think it will. But it won’t make a dramatic shift,” he said.

He and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond pointed people to ideas that could spur lasting change. For example, the Air Force will reconsider whether its Officer Qualifying Test and Weighted Airman Promotion System tests offer the fairest way to assess proficiency. The Space Force wants to ditch tests for promotion and assignment boards that take the value of diverse backgrounds and ideas into consideration.

Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. is taking a new approach to inclusion in the civilian workforce, which can spend much longer in the same job or field than military personnel. He started a “status of discipline” program like that is used by service members to track and discuss performance issues. That can raise red flags of barriers to progress within the command or biases in certain units or fields.

For Airmen and Guardians who work with a member of a white supremacist group, “We need to hear about it,” Brown said.

“We shouldn’t tolerate that type of leadership, particularly at the [non-commissioned officer] level in our Air Force, our Space Force,” he said when asked about a technical sergeant who led troops while participating in white supremacist activity, a practice regulated by the Defense Department.

Brown and Raymond encouraged troops to continue productive dialogue when they can, and to call in backup when needed. There should be a balance between mission readiness and ensuring people’s voices are heard on the issues that affect their quality of life, they said.

Another step in the right direction is the creation of a diversity and inclusion office at the department’s headquarters, which Brown said Black personnel have long wanted. That group, along with other initiatives and a broader culture shift, aim to shrink the number of incidents that warrant Inspector General or equal-opportunity program attention.

Building a Force Based on Inclusion

For the Space Force, the investigation is a chance to rectify racist practices and attitudes from the start. The Pentagon’s newest service is drawing up a human capital plan that looks to diversify the workforce and ingrain a culture of acceptance.

“Our forces are more ready when everybody that comes to work, regardless of race, color, sex, creed, or religion, feels welcome and has an environment [in] which they can flourish across all of our ranks,” Raymond said. “This is not affirmative action; this is equal opportunity and inclusion.”

The event raised some criticism that Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass, the first woman and Asian American to serve as USAF’s top enlisted member, did not offer her perspective alongside the two four-star generals.

Brown noted that Bass and Chief Master Sergeant Roger A. Towberman, the Space Force’s Senior Enlisted Adviser, are considering doing their own town hall for enlisted Airmen and Guardians.

To those who asked why people believe racial disparities still exist now that the Air Force has a minority Chief of Staff, Brown said: “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean that’s the end of the story.”

“Is it a woman that comes behind me? Is it someone of a different sexual orientation? Is it another diverse group? It can’t be a one-and-done,” he said. “We can’t slap the table and pat ourselves on the back now that I’m sitting here as the Chief of Staff.”

Operation Christmas Drop Continues for 69th Year Despite COVID-19

Operation Christmas Drop Continues for 69th Year Despite COVID-19

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. Air Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Forces earlier this month flew the 69th annual holiday tradition—Operation Christmas Drop—airdropping bundles of aid and toys to Palau despite COVID-19 restrictions.

Aircraft dropped 64 bundles to the 500-island archipelago of Palau from Dec. 6-10, providing aid to people on the islands, while also providing airdrop training for C-130 crews, according to a Dec. 17 release.

“Operation Christmas Drop is one of those exercises, it’s one of those missions, that you don’t forget,” said Maj. Joseph Spitz, Operation Christmas Drop mission commander, in a video release. “It’s got a special place in everyone’s heart who accomplishes it. It’s something you can’t duplicate in any other sense.”

For the 2020 iteration, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers and aircrews took multiple precautions. All personnel from Yokota Air Base, Japan, had a 14-day restriction of movement period at home before, then had to test negative for COVID-19 before deploying to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for the operation. Donations were held for at least 24 hours, before participants, donning masks and gloves, packed them.

The donations were then bundled for the airdrops, disinfected, and placed in a sanitary location for at least 72 hours, according to the release.

“There were a lot of measures we took to make sure that what we did was in line with the DOD [Defense Department] and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines,” Spitz said in the release. “This allowed us to mitigate the risk of spread and transmission of COVID-19 to the islanders of Palau.”

C-130s flew to the airdrop locations, flying low and dropping the bundles via parachute to waiting crews on the ground. The low-level airdrop training is something aircrews from Yokota cannot get at their home location.

“When you fly over, and when you drop aid to them, and they wave to us from the ground, it’s something that you can’t recreate and it’s a very rewarding experience,” Spitz said. 

US Space Command Comes Into Focus in Year 2

US Space Command Comes Into Focus in Year 2

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

When the revived U.S. Space Command got up and running more than one year ago, Pentagon leaders knew they needed the group again, but how would it work?

The organization, which manages operations of the satellites, radars, and other support systems that enable everything from guided missiles to troop communications, launched in August 2019. The Space Force was created shortly after to provide personnel and resources to that command for daily combat needs.

Since then, SPACECOM has built a staff of nearly 600 employees from across the military, according to Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Brook J. Leonard. It currently plans to grow to nearly 1,400 personnel, first based at the temporary headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. The Pentagon is considering six locations, including Peterson, to become the permanent HQ.

SPACECOM hopes to draw from a robust local military, civilian, and contractor workforce that offers space and joint warfighting expertise, Leonard said Dec. 21 at an event hosted by the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. About 60 percent of the command’s headquarters will be civilian employees.

“We are able to do what the nation needs us to do, but to stay ahead of our enemies, we’re going to need to continue to build out,” Leonard said. He noted the armed forces will be fairly evenly represented across that workforce.

Eighty percent of the command’s time and resources will be spent on short-term planning and operations, while the other 20 percent will be focused on research and development for big, futuristic ideas.

What has matured so far is the command’s understanding of how the armed forces should work together to use and defend space assets. The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force each have a component at SPACECOM that are experts in how the services rely on space, and the Air Force is exploring its options as well.

“This traditional way of looking at warfare, where you have these phases that you incrementally ratchet up through and you finally get to, ‘Hey, bullets are flying now,’ that’s really not the way it’s going to play out,” Leonard said. “The timing of that is going to be different across the domains and the dimensions of the conflict or of the competition that you’re in.”

A scuffle in space could lead to further aggression on Earth, he added: “We might need to go first in space, we might need to be able to survive and take a punch in space.” 

Rather than rely on traditional bombing and ground combat campaigns, they’re drawing up new concepts of how to strategically “set the battlespace” to compete for global influence with countries like Russia and China.

In their thinking, space and cyber forces should partner with “gray forces,” like undersea or special operations troops, for targeted offense and defense, Leonard said. Successful operations could lead to smaller-scale conflict that stays more in the digital realm than the physical.

“How do we think about the fact that competition and staying in the game, and doing so in a way that we can easily pivot, but yet at the same time, show strength, is key to winning without fighting?” he added.

Those considerations are still evolving. China’s mining enterprise on the moon is expanding the scope of how SPACECOM defines its future responsibilities, Leonard said: “That forces us to be able to think through how we would secure that environment for the Artemis program, as we go back to the moon as well.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s aspirations to colonize Mars is also shaping those plans, since the U.S. military plans to support commercial companies as they head farther away from Earth.

“What’s the outer boundary of our area of responsibility?” Leonard said. “I mentioned 100 kilometers is sort of the inner boundary, but what’s the outer boundary, and how fast are they going there, and in what way are they going there?” 

Global—and extraterrestrial—planning calls for close ties with the other combatant commands. SPACECOM this year has worked to fully staff its planning cells that liaise with the other COCOMs, and already has those teams in place at U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and U.S. European Command. 

“We have some future missions that we’re preparing for: our global satellite communications manager mission and our global sensor mission, and how that plays into missile warning and missile defense,” Leonard said. “We’re working very closely with [U.S. Northern Command], as well as Strategic Command to be able to do that right, and really make the most efficient use out of many of our sensors that do a lot of the same things.”

In particular, Leonard noted the partnership between space and U.S. Cyber Command personnel is key. If those networks are attacked, space systems could be little more than hardware floating on orbit.

He added the growing relationship between the Space Force and the Intelligence Community is leading to a resurgence in operations intel that helps U.S. troops understand how space systems are designed and how an adversary might wield them.

“We’re starting to stitch together our processes and our capabilities,” Leonard said. “It’s been wonderful to see the expertise that they bring to the field, but also the reliance that they have on space—in particular, operations intelligence, which had subsided in the 17 years where Space Command was not in existence.”

Hypersonic HAWC Won’t Fly This Year Due to Ongoing Test Problems

Hypersonic HAWC Won’t Fly This Year Due to Ongoing Test Problems

Dec. 22, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

An attempt by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force to fly the first Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept [HAWC] experimental missile last week failed because of testing snafus, sources report.

DARPA announced in September it had completed captive-carry testing of the two HAWC vehicle types and would be flying at least one by the end of the year. Both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies have developed HAWC demonstrators, and sources said the Lockheed vehicle was the one being tested. They said last week’s attempt can’t be re-organized by the end of December.

“This is not about a design issue,” said a source familiar with the program. “This is dumb mistakes.”

The Air Force and DARPA got telemetry aircraft up and cleared the test area, but the missile was apparently not released from its B-52 mothership. The exact nature of the problem was not disclosed, but sources implied there were “basic errors” having to do with the mechanics of the test.  

The service is expected to test the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) by the end of the month, but that is an Air Force-only boost-glide hypersonic missile program proceeding separately from HAWC, said Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper during a Dec. 14 AFA Doolittle Leadership Center virtual forum.

A DARPA spokesman said the HAWC program is classified and the agency cannot provide any test information about it. A source familiar with the test said, “I assure you, you would have heard about it if there was something to celebrate.”

Press reports that a HAWC was inadvertently released and lost during a May captive carry flight were in error, sources said, but the missile was apparently damaged in that test, delaying additional captive carry tests for several months.

Raytheon officials said at the 2019 Paris Air Show that their HAWC might fly by the end of last year, but those predictions proved optimistic.   

Hypersonic aircraft fly at speeds greater than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. They are challenging to defend against because of their speed and ability to maneuver unpredictably.

The Air Force and DARPA are partnered on HAWC, which seeks to test an air-breathing, scramjet-powered, hydrocarbon-fueled missile to explore engine designs, heat-resistant materials, and other technologies necessary to develop a mass-produced, affordable hypersonic standoff missile that is small enough to launch from fighter aircraft.

Aerojet Rocketdyne made the Lockheed HAWC’s engine, while Northrop Grumman supplied the engine for Raytheon’s. Northrop’s expertise stems from its purchase of Orbital ATK, now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, which worked on NASA’s X-43 hypersonic test vehicle. Northrop has said its HAWC engine is made entirely by additive, or 3-D, printing processes.

In a September press release, DARPA said HAWC flight tests would focus on engine performance and “thermal management techniques to enable prolonged hypersonic cruise,” along with affordable design and manufacturing techniques.

The Air Force Research Laboratory recently announced it had ground tested an 18-foot long scramjet engine in November. Built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, it produced 13,000 pounds of thrust, and is potentially applicable to a large future hypersonic vehicle. Lockheed Martin will acquire Aerojet by the end of 2021, Lockheed announced Dec. 20.

Lockheed CEO James D. Taiclet said on Dec. 21 his company could boost Aerojet’s hypersonic business opportunities by integrating them with Lockheed’s own efforts. Lockheed units working on known hypersonic projects include its “Skunk Works” advanced development unit; Space; Aeronautics; and Missiles and Fire Control.

In November, the Pentagon announced it will partner with Australia on the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE, an air-breathing hypersonic technology program meant to result in full-size prototype weapons within a few years, and a production system within five to 10 years. Sources report that SCIFiRE will derive at least in part from HAWC technologies and the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experiment (HIFiRE) program, a collaborative effort between the U.S. Air Force and Navy, and Australia’s Royal Australian Air Force and military technology agencies since 2005. The project will be run by the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons, Brig. Gen. Heath A. Collins, for the Pentagon’s Directorate for Advanced Capabilities, under the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.  

The Air Force is pursuing several hypersonic weapon programs: the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, an air-breather to be derived from HAWC technology demonstrations; the ARRW, and a third system, dubbed “Mayhem,” which could be larger than ARRW and carry multiple warheads. The Pentagon has said it is not pursuing hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads.

The Air Force dropped out of a joint effort with the Army and Navy, called the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon, or HCSW, in February, saying it was focusing on ARRW and HAWC.     

Both the Pentagon’s Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering Mark Lewis and Roper have said they’ve been pleasantly surprised that air-breathing hypersonic missile development is further along than they expected when they took their respective jobs, compared with boost-glide systems that do not have a complex engine. Roper said in late April that “given how far scramjet technology has matured, I’d expect that we’ll be able to go pretty quickly” with such systems.

USAF, DOD Leaders Make Holiday Visits to Middle East

USAF, DOD Leaders Make Holiday Visits to Middle East

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Top Air Force and Defense Department leaders visited several bases throughout the Middle East to meet with Airmen for the holidays, and receive updates on ongoing missions.

Air Force Secretary Barbara M. Barrett, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass met with Airmen at locations including Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia; al-Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates; Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait; and al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Barrett later took to Twitter, saying the Airmen “are the ultimate competitors in a competition-driven security environment.”

It’s the first time Brown and Bass have toured these Middle East bases while in their current positions, and the second time for Barrett. Brown previously commanded Air Forces Central Command at al-Udeid.

Also on Dec. 22, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller traveled to Afghanistan in an unannounced visit. During the trip, he met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to discuss ongoing U.S. military support and peace talks. He also met with Gen. Austin Scott Miller, commander of Resolute Support and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, for an assessment of the ongoing security situation, including the level of Taliban violence. 

Miller met with service members at RS headquarters, Combat Security Transition Command Afghanistan, and other locations to “acknowledge their sacrifice of being away from their families during a difficult holiday season,” according to a Defense Department release.

 The U.S. military is in the process of drawing down its presence in Afghanistan, dropping to 2,500 total troops by Jan. 15, 2021.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 8:39 a.m. to include more bases USAF leaders visited.

New Initiative to Tackle Racial Inequality Faced by Military Families

New Initiative to Tackle Racial Inequality Faced by Military Families

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The nonprofit Blue Star Families recently debuted a million-dollar Racial Equity Initiative to diversify the military- and veteran-service organization communities and ensure that military families of color feel connected, included, and as though they belong.

“Through five impact areas—research and advocacy, training, leadership, collaboration, and community impact—the initiative will gather new resources and focus the energy of Blue Star Families and a broad assembly of corporate, foundation, and non-profit partners,” according to the initiative’s homepage.

The initiative was born out of the nationwide civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s Memorial Day killing in police custody, Blue Star Families CEO and Board President Kathy Roth-Douquet said during a Dec. 16 interview with Air Force Magazine. 

“The U.S. military was activated or threatened to be activated both in a way that we saw was making our community very uncomfortable,” she recalled. “And [at] Blue Star Families, we lean heavy on data … so we did a pulse poll right away to see how our families were feeling both about the use of the military in, you know, ostensibly [the] civil unrest situation, but also how they were feeling, what their emotions were.”

That survey revealed that the BSF community was simultaneously experiencing a variety of “strong feelings,” including fear, worry, and hope, she said. It echoed a much broader survey conducted by the Air Force Inspector General’s office, which released a 150-page report on Dec. 21 citing widespread racial disparities within the Department of the Air Force.

“We also saw a lot of concern about use of … Active-duty forces,” she said. Although the concern was “universal” it “was a lot higher among military families of color,” she added.

While the organization hadn’t really historically examined its survey responses by race, this finding—paired with racial disparities it observed in subsequent “pulse polls”—served as a wake-up call.

“We realized that there is an opportunity for us to do much more work around the issues that are key to our mission, which are, ‘do military families experience that sense of belonging that one needs in order to thrive in order to … give us the strongest military that we need in our country?’” she said. “And it’s not hard to see that there is work to be done. And if not us, who? If not now, when?”

Video: Blue Star Families on YouTube

To get after this goal of increasing inclusion, Blue Star Families assembled an expert Racial Equity Committee co-chaired by retired Army Lt. Gen. Gwen Bingham, a Black former Army assistant chief of staff for installation management, and Ingrid Herrera-Yee, a clinical psychology health expert with Booz Allen Hamilton who is also a military spouse and a first-generation Latina-American.

“For me, inclusion is vitally important. I think it’s most important because it’s one thing to have a seat at the table if you have that seat at the table, but it’s another … to feel that sense of inclusion,” Bingham said.

While the initiative formally kicked off in mid-December, the committee has been meeting and brainstorming for months already, Roth-Douquet said.

Former Air Force Association President, former USAF Vice Chief of Staff, and retired Gen. Larry O. Spencer—also a member of the committee—told Air Force Magazine that Blue Star Families was the first person or organization to ask about how his race informed his and his family’s personal experience since he first joined the military.

Floyd’s and subsequent unrest has also shed more light on the struggles of undocumented immigrants and families being separated at the U.S.-Mexico border—issues that Herrera-Yee said also impact military families—and made Latino troops and their families feel more seen.

“We have military families … [whose] families … come from … these undocumented origins and who are suffering as well, and, and we have military families who have service members who are undocumented, who use this as a pathway to citizenship and then all of a sudden, they were being deported, so all of these issues are so vital to our entire community,” she said.

At the end of the day, minority troops and their families don’t exist in a bubble, Spencer said.

“There seems to be this assumption that military families are somehow isolated from everything that’s around them, and that’s just not true,” he said. “You know, military families live in the communities, they watch the same news and events that everybody else do[es], and they have concerns like everybody else.”

The initiative’s primary aims are to ensure that military families of color are informed about the support resources and programs at their disposal and to create a pipeline of leaders of color to support this diversity effort. 

The initiative will also do community outreach and engagement and “cross-sector group of organizations,” the nonprofit writes.

The initiative is getting training, financial, or other support from groups including the Bush Institute, the Bob Woodruff Foundation, the American Red Cross, Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families, Starbucks, Lockheed Martin, the McCormick Foundation, and Craig Newmark Philantrophies, she said. 

Spencer and Roth-Douquet agreed that military service organizations don’t have the luxury of ignoring the issue of racial inequality anymore.

“I don’t think this is a two sides issue,” he said. “I think it’s an American issue, it’s a matter of our society, continuing to move forward, and continuing to recognize, and, you know, treat everyone with dignity and respect.”