Here’s What the Air Force Can’t Get Rid Of, According to the Draft NDAA

Dec. 4, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Every year, Congress and the military debate which combat assets should head to the boneyard and which have more life left in them. Lawmakers often opt to keep Air Force systems that bring jobs to their districts, which complicates matters as the service looks to modernize and ditch certain platforms. Sometimes the Air Force opposes congressional efforts to divest planes as well.

While the final draft of the 2021 defense policy bill, released Dec. 3, is open to letting go of some worn airframes, several others will stick around. The National Defense Authorization Act is expected to pass both chambers of Congress and must still earn the President’s approval to become law.

Here’s how it shook out:

A-10

Debate over the future of the A-10 attack plane continued into the 2021 legislation, with Congress opting to block the Air Force from spending money to retire any of the airframes. The Air Force wanted to drop from 85 to 46 Air National Guard A-10s in 2021, and from 55 to 48 Air Force Reserve A-10s. It will maintain about the same number of Active-duty A-10s, at 145 airframes.

The limitation doesn’t apply to A-10s the Air Force Secretary deems unable to fly their missions because of extensive damage or repair expenses.

Within 120 days after the bill is signed into law, the Air Force Secretary will send congressional defense committees a report on efforts to install new wings onto the A-10.

386th EAMXS Airmen maintain, launch and recover Reapers — An MQ-9 Reaper from the 46th Expeditionary Attack Squadron is parked on the flightline at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, June 9, 2020. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Isaiah J. Soliz.

MQ-9

The Air Force surprised the public this year with a plan to cut short production of the MQ-9 Reaper drone that has been a mainstay throughout the counterterrorism operations of the past two decades. It wanted to buy its last Reapers in fiscal 2020 and slashed the program’s funding in 2021.

Not so fast, Congress said. Lawmakers opposed the idea and instead want the Air Force to buy another 16 MQ-9s, at a cost of $108 million.

The fight over Reapers is one case where the Air Force and Congress disagree about which assets the service needs as it tries to reprioritize high-tech, advanced combat with other major militaries. Many worry the MQ-9 isn’t equipped to deal with threats like modern surface-to-air missiles or fighter jets.

U-2 and RQ-4

Lawmakers continue to be concerned about the Air Force’s frequently changing plans to retire the RQ-4 Global Hawk and the U-2 Dragon Lady surveillance planes. The Air Force is trying to ditch all Block 20 and 30 models of the RQ-4 drone, but it “did not provide either the required certifications or a waiver from the Secretary of Defense” to show that the plan was feasible, lawmakers noted.

Congress wants assurance it would be worthwhile to replace the reconnaissance platforms with something better even if it is more expensive, and that commanders around the world could still accomplish their combat goals if the current fleets shrink.

House lawmakers tried to block 50 percent of funding for the Advanced Battle Management System until the Air Force pledged not to retire the Global Hawk in 2021. That was not included in the final bill.

Congress instead amended an earlier law that lays out steps for what the Pentagon must do first to retire either aircraft. Officials still have to come up with proof that retirement wouldn’t harm the military before it stops maintaining the fleets.

“The conferees understand and acknowledge that modernizing airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities will necessitate divestment of legacy systems,” members said. “However, the conferees remain concerned about the Air Force’s continued inability to execute an ISR acquisition and replacement plan that appropriately manages operational risk to the global combatant commanders, as well as the service’s failure to comply with current public law.”

Legislators call for a “comprehensive ISR modernization plan” by March 30, 2021, to allay their fears about retiring aircraft without a suitable replacement available.

KC-135

Members want to ban retirement of the KC-135 tanker in 2021 while more KC-46 jets become available. Still, the Air Force can determine that a plane is unfit to continue or too expensive to repair. The bill also opens the door to retiring the tankers if the Air Force certifies in fiscal 2023 that it can still meet tanker demand through the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.

Lawmakers do want to allow the Air Force to sunset the KC-10 tanker over time, dropping from a minimum of 50 aircraft in the primary inventory in fiscal 2021 to at least 26 in fiscal 2023.

RC-135

The aging RC-135 intelligence-collection fleet has been a recent target for those looking to cut costs and find a more survivable way to harvest an enemy’s electronic communications and ballistic missile data.

While the House tried to stop the Air Force from retiring the RC-135s until the end of fiscal 2025, the Senate pared that back to a prohibition that covers only 2021. Now, the Defense Secretary must confirm that other technologies are fit to take the place of those planes, and can meet the needs of commanders around the world. Then DOD can begin sunsetting RC-135s after 60 days have passed.

JSTARS Retrieval — Airman 1st Class Jeremy Cole, 379th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, marshals an E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System that landed Oct. 20, 2016, at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, following a mission supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Miles Wilson.

E-8 JSTARS

Lawmakers are calling for the Air Force to make sure it can replace the capability of the 16 E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System planes, which track moving targets on the ground, before it gets rid of the airframe. The service wanted to ditch JSTARS in favor of new concepts through the Advanced Battle Management System that is still in its early stages.

Members of Congress also want to see suggestions of where the replacement could be based before the Air Force is allowed to retire the E-8C. The Air Force shouldn’t waste decades of combat command-and-control experience that has accumulated over the course of the JSTARS program, they said.

“JSTARS ground moving target indicator and airborne battle management and command-and-control capabilities continue to be in high demand from global combatant commanders,” lawmakers wrote. “The conferees are concerned about insufficient modernization and sustainment funding for the current platforms. The conferees expect to see adequate resources budgeted in fiscal years 2022 and beyond while JSTARS is flying these missions in support of overseas operations.”

F-15C

Lawmakers agreed to block the divestment of American F-15C fighter jets in Europe until the U.S. European Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe bosses offer a “strategy, force structure construct and capacity, and strategy implementation plan” for replacing the airframes. They are concerned removing F-15Cs could cut capability and capacity at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., before newer fighters arrive.

RC-26

The Air Force is banned from spending money to do away with the RC-26B in 2021, unless it deems them incapable of service. This continues the fight over what to do with the airframe from last year, when lawmakers kept the planes around despite the Air National Guard’s intent to stop using them.

Lawmakers also approved potential agreements between federal agencies to use the reconnaissance planes for non-military missions. That comes after Air National Guard RC-26s were seen flying over the District of Columbia, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and elsewhere amid civil unrest across the country. The Defense Department said they were assessing crowd flow and fire safety, not tracking individuals. At least one ANG RC-26 flew over the California wildfires in August, providing damage assessments and predictive analysis to inform crews on the ground.

Maintenance Issues Force B-52 to Divert During Bomber Task Force Mission

Dec. 4, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force sent two bomber task forces to the Pacific and Europe on Dec. 3, with a B-52 linking up with Greek and Norwegian fighters after another was forced to divert, and B-1s headed back to Guam.

Two B-52s took off from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and were en route to the Barents Sea when one of the Stratofortresses experienced a maintenance issue and had to divert to RAF Fairford, United Kingdom. The remaining B-52 continued, and joined up with Greek and Norwegian F-16s along with U.S. and Turkish KC-135s for training, according to U.S. European Command.

That B-52 then returned directly to Minot in what was the latest in a series of long-range, round-trip missions to Europe from the continental U.S. These bomber task force flights help build “muscle memory to operate across Europe,” U.S. Air Forces in Europe boss Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said in June.

Also on Dec. 3, B-1s from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., deployed as a task force to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. The Lancers replaced B-1s that returned to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, from Andersen on Nov. 22.

The Air Force has regularly sent bombers to the Indo-Pacific, both on short-term deployments to the region and in round-trip flights from their home bases inside the U.S. The deployments are part of a new dynamic force employment model that replaced Pacific Air Forces’ Continuous Bomber Presence mission at Anderson Air Force, Guam, which ended in April.

Trump Orders Pentagon to Withdraw Most Forces from Somalia

Dec. 4, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The U.S. military will withdraw the “majority” of its personnel and assets out of Somalia by early 2021, the Pentagon announced without providing specifics.

President Donald J. Trump ordered the move, though the Defense Department in a Dec. 4 statement said the “U.S. is not withdrawing or disengaging from Africa. We remain committed to our African partners and enduring support through a whole-of-government approach.”

The Pentagon has not disclosed how many personnel are in the African nation, where they train Somali forces and have conducted operations against al-Shabab, though the Defense Department Inspector General in a November report said between 650 and 800 troops were operating in the country. Despite the withdrawal, the Pentagon contends “this action is not a change in U.S. policy.”

Some of the forces “may be reassigned outside of East Africa,” the Pentagon said, adding that some will be moved to neighboring countries for cross-border operations.

The move comes about a week after Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller visited U.S. forces and diplomats in Somalia along with U.S. Africa Command boss Gen. Stephen J. Townsend. “Partnership and a range of U.S. assistance remains critically important to the stability, security, and prosperity of this region,” Townsend said in a statement. “We must continue to work together and deliver whole-of-government, international, and African solutions to address regional issues.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, during a Dec. 2 event with the Brookings Institution, said there would still need to be some troops in or near Somalia to prevent al-Shabab from growing stronger. The group has “some reach” and could conduct operations against U.S. interests in the region and possibly against the homeland.

“So we’re taking a hard look at a repositioning of the force to better enable us to conduct counter terrorist operations,” he said. “Relatively small footprint, relatively low cost in terms of numbers of personnel, and in terms of money. But it’s also high risk.”

While U.S. air strikes in Somalia have slowed, there have still been flare-ups. Last month, a CIA officer was killed in combat in the country, The New York Times reported.

“None of these operations are without risk,” Milley said. “But we think we’re approaching it rationally and responsibly to adjust the footprint to what is necessary in order to continue the operations against the terrorists that are out there.”

The U.S. forces in the country are largely special operations and focused on training, with U.S. Air Force assets staged outside the country. Air Force Magazine reported last year there was only one combat search and rescue team for the entire African continent, which is staged outside Somalia and is on-call for emergencies in the country.

The withdrawal comes weeks after Trump also ordered the Defense Department to reduce its footprint in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. troop presence in each country will drop down to 2,500 by Jan. 15, 2021.

U.S. Approved More than $175 Billion in Weapons Sales in 2020

Dec. 4, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Authorized U.S. arms exports jumped 2.8 percent, climbing to $175.08 billion in 2020 from $170.09 in 2019, fueled largely by major F-35 sales, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced Dec. 4.

The total reflects all deals DSCA has approved in the fiscal year, including $50.78 billion of implemented government-to-government foreign military sales. The increase in approved buys coincided with the State Department’s efforts to reform arms transfers, including the loosening of restrictions governing the export of remotely piloted aircraft.

The 2020 FMS sales dropped about $5 billion from 2019’s total of $55.39 billion for a three-year rolling average of about $54 billion, according to DSCA. Major implemented sales included $23.1 billion for F-35s to Japan, $4.5 billion for F-15J modernization to Japan, $4.25 billion for AH-64E helicopters to Morocco, and $3 billion for aviation fuel to Israel, among others.

Of that total, $44.79 billion is funded by allied and partner nations, $3.3 billion is from Title 22 foreign military financing, and $2.69 billion is from Title 10 U.S. government funding for foreign military assistance and building partner capacity, DSCA Director Heidi Grant said in a Pentagon briefing.

“The sales demonstrate the United States continues to be the global security partner of choice. Not only do we already offer the most advanced defense equipment in the world, we are also increasingly adapting to meet the technical needs of our allies and partner militaries,” she said.

Additionally, DSCA issued 28,800 export licenses via direct commercial sales, for a total of $124.3 billion. This is up from $114.7 billion in 2019. Major congressional notifications for this included $3.25 billion for P-8 spare parts to Australia, $1.12 billion for Italy to manufacture F-35 wing assembly, and $2.48 billion for E-7 Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft.

Fiscal 2021 already looks to be a big year for arms sales abroad, though some announced deals have been met with controversy. In November, DSCA approved a $10.4 billion sale of F-35s and a $2.97 billion sale of MQ-9s to the United Arab Emirates, though several lawmakers have moved to block that sale.

The increase in approved sales came despite impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reflects the importance both the government and defense companies put on meeting requests from allies and partners, said R. Clarke Cooper, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.

“Through supply chains and revenue streams, though they were disrupted and budgets are uncertain, our partners’ programmatic needs remain unchanged,” he said. “Both the United States government and industry continue to honor our commitments to our partners.”

‘License Plates’ for Satellites Among Tech Showcased in New Space Force Accelerator

Dec. 4, 2020 | By Shaun Waterman

Resilient Solutions 21 took top prize in the Hyperspace Challenge, earning $25,000 for its artificial intelligence-based program that can predict the emergence of faults in satellite hardware and software using techniques originally developed to treat cancer patients.

A digital license plate that identifies spacecraft and an electrically propelled robot drone that can refuel and repair satellites on orbit were among the runners up in the Space Force Accelerator Program‘s latest competition, held Dec. 3.

Eleven start-ups and two university based teams took part in the third annual Hyperspace Challenge—competing for a total of $50,000 in prize money, divided amongst three winners—and the chance to present their solutions to program managers and other potential government customers at a recent demonstration day.

“We’re excited to include universities for the first time this year because it enables us to access innovation that we know is happening in the university systems across the country,” said Gabriel Mounce, who manages the Space Force Accelerator Program for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate. Competing technologies were asked to solve four issue areas:

Improving autonomy and on-orbit servicing in space
Enabling better hazard detection and avoidance in orbit
Developing state-of-the-art machine learning capabilities for space vehicles
Developing resilient computing solutions for space capabilities.

Resilient Solutions 21, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based start-up, is developing a neural network, an artificial intelligence, using techniques called “survival analysis” that were pioneered in precision oncology, Chief Technology Officer Kameron Baumgardner said. “This approach is well suited in an area where population level analytics may perform poorly; individuals are completely unique; and there are many different types of data which need to be evaluated to make an accurate prediction.” These characteristics were all present with satellites, he said. “By treating each satellite as a patient, we will be able to encode all of the data about them, train neural networks, and predict the chance that they’ll have a critical system fault … in the near future.”

The company has been training its AI using NASA telemetry data, but is eager to find new partners who might have additional datasets they could use, Baumgardner said. “These neural networks would need to be trained and built terrestrially. But the final model is a small lightweight application, which could be deployed in order to assist operators in making their decisions, or integrated with autonomous control systems to provide a valuable flag in triggering automated mitigations” for looming critical flaws.

Baumgardner said the AI can be “generalizable,” for instance to digital twin technology, which currently uses software-based models of critical equipment like generators or jet engines to predict when they might break down. “Digital twin capabilities typically rely on computationally intensive physics-based simulations,” he explained, but RS21’s models are “small and lightweight and can make predictions in a much more rapid and resource unintensive manner.“

The runner-up prize and $15,000 went to Starfish Space, a Kent, Wa.-based start-up founded last year by former NASA and Blue Origin engineers. Starfish is piggy-backing its autonomous flight software atop new developments in low-power electric propulsion to develop a relatively low-cost autonomous drone-type vehicle that could be used to repair, refuel, and reposition satellites on orbit.

Co-founder Austin Link said that satellite servicing—so-called rendezvous and proximity operations, or RPO—was predicted to be a $4.5 billion market by 2027. Autonomy and electric propulsion will enable Starfish to scale in that market, Link said.

“Our software supports missions such as active life extension, space debris removal, and various defense capabilities,” he said.

Third place and the $10,000 prize went to Space Domain Awareness Inc. (SDA) for their space object identification system. “The world’s first orbital license plate,” as CEO John Lee called it.

The Space Object Identification System is “a low cost optical beacon that can be easily affixed to any object launched into space that will be used to positively identify that object and integrate orbital information seamlessly into existing space traffic management systems,” he explained.

Lee said that through their participation in the Hyperspace Challenge, the company had identified a number of “requirements for improved automatic hazard detection and avoidance” from U.S. Space Force, which is charged with ensuring U.S. freedom of action in increasingly crowded orbital space. Currently, “it can take weeks to positively identify a satellite and that’s only going to get worse,” Lee said. More importantly, he added, “timely intent determination is vital. Satellites increasingly operate autonomously and warfighters spend precious time determining whether a satellite maneuvered to avoid a collision, or whether it maneuvered to attack friendly assets, for example.”

The space object identification system has three parts that could help create an ecosystem in orbit that would help warfighters with situational awareness, Lee said:

A small laser beacon that can be attached to any object launched into space
A network of globally distributed ground stations built from commercial off-the-shelf components
Machine learning algorithms that provide collision avoidance warnings for customers.

SDA hopes to test a prototype of its beacon in space next year, and to be on a majority of the 1,100 smallsats expected to be launched in 2025, Lee said.

Space Force accelerators like the Hyperspace Challenge are designed to help start-ups make the difficult transition to selling to U.S. military or civilian government customers, noted Maj. Gen. Kimberly A. Crider, mobilization assistant to the Chief of Space Operations, in a colloquy with Capt. Roger Anderson, deputy director of the Space Force Accelerators program.

Indeed, there is a notorious gap—the so-called “valley of death”—between innovative contract vehicles like the Small Business Innovation Research grants, which several Hyperspace Challenge participants said they were seeking, and the large, long-running programs of record that make up the majority of Defense Department spending. Companies with viable technology can go broke waiting for government contracts, observers say. But Crider said the Space Force was determined to change that.

“We have to conquer the valley of death, that is my charge,” she said.

Congress Won’t Impose Naval Ranks on the Space Force

Dec. 4, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Congress has backed off on requiring the Space Force to adopt naval ranks, allowing the new service to choose its own military rank system and a name for its members.

Former Navy SEAL Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) earlier this year floated the idea of calling Space Force personnel admirals or ensigns, for example, instead of their current Air Force ranks, like general and staff sergeant. His provision landed in the House’s version of the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill now making its way through Congress.

But the Senate did not have a similar provision, and ultimately won out in stripping Crenshaw’s language from the bipartisan compromise between the two chambers.

“The conferees understand that the Space Force is currently undertaking an assessment of the future rank structure of the members of the Space Force,” according to the report accompanying the final bill, released Dec. 3. “The conferees assume the Space Force will be comprised of members transferring from all services across the department and strongly encourage the consideration of all the military services’ historic rank structures.”

The Space Force had been ready to announce its rank plans when Crenshaw’s amendment intervened, so the service waited on Congress to decide whether to keep the provision before making any major announcements about its future.

Lawmakers relented after the Space Force’s top general discussed the idea with some members. Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, the Chief of Space Operations, appreciates the attention from Capitol Hill but prefers lawmakers let the service choose its own ranks.

“We’re working very closely to develop the rank structures that we think are important for our force going forward,” Raymond told Air Force Magazine in October. “Some of these culture pieces are things that we want to get right. We want to give an opportunity for the folks that are in our service to have a voice.”

Once the Secretary of the Air Force picks ranks for Space Force officers and enlisted members, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees want a report with those details at least 15 days before the changes take effect.

If the service opts for ranks that mirror the name of Space Force members—as do ranks like senior airman and airman first class—Congress’s move opens the door to decide on that name. The Space Force unofficially calls its people “Space Professionals” as it figures out whether to go with “sentinel,” “guardian,” or another moniker.

“We’ve been very deliberate in our efforts to make sure that these things that we do, either the seals or the flags or the naming convention, mean something to the space professionals,” Raymond said.

Lawmakers also blocked the Pentagon from creating a Space National Guard or Space Reserve without a study that shows doing so is the best way to accomplish the Space Force’s mission. The final bill bans the Department of the Air Force from transferring Air National Guard space personnel to other parts of the Air Force, or relocating or eliminating any space elements of the Air Force reserve component.

By the end of March 2021, Congress wants the Defense Secretary to launch a study to plan the best way forward for a reserve component. The congressional defense committees ask for recommendations on how the Space Force might use full- and part-time employment to “best leverage the human capital of the Space Force, including a single integrated force.”

Space Force officials envision a reserve component that may be more fluid and offer different options from others like the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, hoping more flexibility will attract members and allow for broader professional development.

The final version of the 2021 defense policy bill is expected to pass both chambers of Congress and must still earn the President’s approval to become law.

House, Senate Reach Bipartisan Agreement on Massive Defense Policy Bill

Dec. 3, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

As the final days of 2020 count down, House and Senate negotiators have agreed on sweeping defense policy legislation that offers nearly $732 billion to the armed forces in fiscal 2021.

The compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes a slew of notable aerospace provisions like $8.7 billion for 93 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters across the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, keeping the A-10 attack plane in the inventory while supporting many other platforms, and opting not to make the Space Force use naval ranks.

It also puts guardrails on plans to withdraw American service members from Afghanistan and Germany, creates a commission to chart a path for renaming military property that honors Confederate figures, and restricts the military from giving certain equipment like weaponized drones to local law enforcement groups.

“The FY21 NDAA focuses on maintaining the strength of our defense enterprise as our nation grapples with a once-in-a-generation health crisis and a heightened social crisis against the backdrop of sustained systemic discrimination,” the House Armed Services Committee said in a summary of the agreement, now in its 60th year.

But the legislation has ballooned to more than 5,300 pages across its text and accompanying explanatory report, as lawmakers across Capitol Hill increasingly piggyback on what is seen as a “must-pass” annual bill. That has made it harder for the Senate and House Armed Services committees to focus on hammering out their own provisions.

About 30 percent of the 2021 NDAA is related to matters outside of the military, a top GOP aide told reporters Dec. 3.

Armed Services members and staffers don’t negotiate provisions that fall outside their defense lane, but “simply make sure that the final agreement is an agreement that doesn’t hurt our bill,” the GOP aide said. Those cross-jurisdictional tensions came into view this year as President Donald J. Trump threatened to veto the bill over lawmakers’ refusal to repeal legal protections for social media as part of the NDAA.

“Back in 2010, the bill was about 1,200 pages. One of the things that we see growing each year … is how much more stuff is getting put on the NDAA each year which is really outside the jurisdiction of the committee. So it takes us a little longer to get all this done,” the GOP aide said.

Outside committee items have increasingly weighed down the NDAA over the past decade of shepherding the bill through Congress, a Democratic aide noted. That trend tracks with increased polarization on Capitol Hill that has made it harder to successfully move ideas through the legislative process.

“We try and help committees do their own work, and then we don’t go seeking to have things attached to the NDAA,” the Democratic aide said. “They end up that way from the members on the House floor and the Rules Committee lets those things in, and then they get voted in the bill.”

Senate staffers this year were heartened by several NDAA amendments that won debate time on the chamber floor, putting them up for votes instead of more quietly adding them into the giant bill.

Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Ranking Member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) “have developed a process on the committee where … a big chunk of committee staff work is clearing other committees’ stuff through the process to get put on our bill,” the senior GOP aide said. “I do hope that reverses. I hope that we don’t have to do that anymore, not to the same extent.”

Still, they are proud of managing to piece together a bipartisan bill amid the new coronavirus pandemic, election-year politicking, and waves of social unrest. Formal conference talks came late this year, after the Nov. 3 elections, prompting worry that Congress couldn’t get the NDAA across the finish line before the new year.

Some have cautioned that the Hill would have to freshly restart negotiations in 2021 if this package doesn’t become law before the new Congress begins Jan. 3.

“If … we’re in a situation like that, we will just have to map it out. We have a completed conference report, it’s a good conference report,” a Democratic staffer said of a presidential veto. “If it needs to be fixed because there’s a problem along the way, I’m certain that we will find a way to do it like we always do.”

Trump’s allies have pushed him not to derail their work over disagreements on Confederate base names and Section 230 social media protections.

Axios reported Nov. 2 that Inhofe has tried to dispel Trump’s notion that the White House would win on those two issues. “This is the only chance to get our bill passed,” a source told Axios they heard Inhofe yelling into his cell phone.

Committee staffers aren’t working on a Plan B in case Trump does say no to the bill, which is expected to pass the House and Senate. The House plans to move forward with it the week of Dec. 7, with the Senate to follow suit. Lawmakers will decide whether to override a possible White House veto if it comes to that.

“If the President decides to veto it, then that’s up to the President, and then we will deal with it with the time we have,” the Democratic staffer said.

Trump Nominates Aquilino to Lead INDOPACOM

Dec. 3, 2020 | By Amy Hudson

President Donald J. Trump nominated Adm. John C. Aquilino to lead U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the Pentagon announced on Dec. 3.

If confirmed by the Senate, Aquilino—who has led U.S. Pacific Fleet since May 2018—will replace Adm. Philip S. Davidson. He would be the command’s 26th leader since its inception in 1947, all of whom have been Navy admirals.

A 1984 Naval Academy graduate, Aquilino is a fighter pilot with more than 5,100 “mishap-free flight hours” and 1,150 carrier-arrested landings, according to his biography. Aquilino is also a graduate of the elite Navy Fighter Weapons School—known as Top Gun, the Joint Forces Staff College, and he completed the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education Program in National and International Security. He’s flown the F-14A/B Tomcat and the F-18C/E/F Hornet, and also served as an adversary instructor pilot, flying the A-4, F-5, and F-16N. As a flag officer Aquilino served as the director of strategy and policy on the Joint Staff; deputy director of the U.S. Joint Forces Command; deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans, and strategy; and commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, among other assignments.

Aquilino would take command of the Defense Department’s “priority theater” as the U.S. military shifts its focus from decades of counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East to great power competition with China and Russia. In 2018, the command then known as Pacific Command added “Indo” to its name to reflect the growing importance of the Indian Ocean region.

Speaking in July 2019, shortly after the release of DOD’s first Indo-Pacific strategy report, Davidson said China’s military was on pace to surpass U.S. capabilities within a few years if significant changes are not made.

The department is committed to bolstering U.S. military capabilities in the theater. The Air Force is in the process of bedding down fifth-generation F-35A strike fighters at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, while the Marine Corps in October stood up its second F-35B squadron at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. In September, the Air Force’s third Advanced Battle Management System demonstration took place in the Pacific, with some 11,000 Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel, 100 aircraft, and several ships participating.

As of June 2019, there were more than 370,000 Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines operating in the Indo-Pacific, along with more than 2,000 aircraft and 200 ships and submarines.

Hypersonic Missile Coming Five Years Faster Thanks to Acquisition Reform

Dec. 3, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

A rewrite of the Pentagon’s acquisition rulebook is allowing the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) to progress five years faster than it would have under previous procedures, the service’s top uniformed acquisition officer said Dec. 3. The missile will achieve operational capability before the end of 2022, he said.

“If we had planned this as a traditional program, it would have taken an additional five years,” Lt. Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, military deputy to Air Force service acquisition executive Will Roper, said in a National Defense Industrial Association online program on acquisition reform. The ARRW “started in May of ’18,” and, although it has experienced “some hiccups,” it will achieve an early operational capability “by the fourth quarter of ’22,” he said, with “a residual capability once that’s done.”

The ARRW is the Air Force’s “hallmark rapid prototyping program,” he said.

The Pentagon, at the direction of acquisition and sustainment chief Ellen M. Lord, undertook a rewrite of the 5000-series acquisition rulebook, which was signed off by Deputy Defense Secretary David L. Norquist in September. Pieces of the rules changes—abetted by congressional authorities to skip some non-value-added reports and steps in the interest of speed—have been applied over the last few years.

Once the ARRW rapid prototyping phase is complete, “we’ll make a decision … whether to roll into a rapid fielding or do a major capability acquisition,” Richardson said. “Thankfully, that’s not a decision we need to make today.”

Richardson praised a new series of Pentagon “pathways” to identify the type of program or service to be acquired, which requires program managers to “think critically” about the optimal method of contracting and use a tailored approach.

“Our DOD acquisition workforce is very compliance-based; very prone to follow the rules as they’re written,” Richardson said. When he was a program executive officer on four programs, only rarely would programs request a tailored approach to contracting, even if they were well suited to such an approach.

“I would ask them, …‘why didn’t you ask me to tailor it?’ … They said, ‘We weren’t sure you’d say yes,’ or, ‘Could you just approve it, sir, we’ve done the work, approve it so we can move on.’” Richardson faulted himself for not “giving them PEO intent before they started the process.”

The new system demands that program managers tailor their contracts. “You’re not going to get past the first page unless you make decisions” about how the contract should be uniquely structured, he noted.

The new regulations “do a good job of forcing you to look at the risk, the urgency, the complexity of exactly what you’re buying and figure out which of these pathways you’re going to follow,” each of which have unique approaches and timetables. Software, for example, forces an iterative process under the new rules.

The new playbook also likely ensures that a single contracting method won’t hold for the duration of a program, he said. The rules compel the workforce to “think and not just follow recipes.”

Lord said the six pathways are: urgent, medium, major, software, business systems, and acquisition of services.

She noted that nearly half of the Pentagon’s annual $124 billion expenditures on contracts is for services, and 80 percent of that is for sustainment.

The Air Force used the new rules to deliver a needed capability swiftly under the “urgent” pathway as it looked to find a means to transport COVID-19-infected personnel, Richardson said. The department received a Joint Urgent Operational Need statement “at the end of March, and we shipped the first ones in June,” he said. The choice of pathway affects the timelines of things like testing and product support, which are all spelled out in the new rules, he said.

In addition to Lord’s six pathways, Richardson told her during the event that the Air Force plans to request a seventh, “for space, because it’s different.” The Department of the Air Force doesn’t buy a lot of space systems, and their product support strategies are “quite different from everything else,” he said. While the service will first explore whether it can use the existing pathways, “We need to get after how we do space acquisition.” Lord did not respond to the comment.

Another benefit of the new regulations is that documentation can be plugged into the process in a more sensible way, where and when it’s truly needed, Richardson said. A great deal of time can be saved by not having to produce a “cataclysmic Milestone B”—the start of a major program—with acres of paperwork that must be read, commented on, and refined for a program to advance.

The F-15EX is another example of a program following the new rules, Richardson noted. As a rapid fielding program—without the need for rapid prototyping—the F-15EX could take advantage of development work already done by allies. “We’ve already awarded the Lot 1” contract, he noted. However, the program will likely shift to a “major capability pathway” once it gets underway.

Richardson said Congress and the Pentagon should give the acquisition workforce some slack on possible mistakes, which he said there will be over time.

“If we react in a negative way and start firing people” over mistakes that are honest, in the spirit of going fast, then the workforce will say, “‘OK, I see how this works, this is why I used to be risk-averse,’” he said. On the whole, there will be “more good than mistakes,” Richardson predicted.