Clock is Ticking on New START Extension

Dec. 3, 2020 | By Amy Hudson

President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will have just 16 days after Inauguration Day in January to strike a deal with Russia to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. If they fail to agree, the last remaining pact limiting the two countries’ nuclear arsenals will expire.

New START is set to expire on Feb. 5, 2021 unless an agreement is reached. The treaty limits each party to 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads and allows up to 700 of any combination of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable bombers.

It appeared a deal was on the horizon in October, with the Trump administration proposing to extend the treaty for one year, plus a yearlong freeze on the number of nuclear warheads each country has deployed. The U.S. also wanted steps to verify that pause as well.

Russia agreed to the extension and the freeze but rejected any type of verification, sidelining negotiations until after the U.S. elections on Nov. 3. Russia has since said it plans to table further discussions until the Biden administration comes in next month. Tony Blinken, one of Biden’s top advisers and his pick for Secretary of State, recently hinted that the new administration would pursue a full five-year extension.

Rose Gottemoeller, who previously served as NATO’s deputy secretary-general and as U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, has long been an advocate of a five-year extension. She argues the “predictability and stability” it will provide is necessary as the U.S. looks to modernize its nuclear capabilities over the next decade.

“I always thought it was impractical to achieve a new treaty in one year. Perhaps, you could do it in two years, but even with New START, which was a very quick negotiation, it took a full year to negotiate the treaty and another 10 months to get it through the ratification process on Capitol Hill,” Gottemoeller said during the Arms Control Association’s virtual annual meeting on Dec. 2.

However, Gottemoeller said the freeze proposed by the Trump administration “is an important principle.” She added it’s important to “move quickly to turn it into a verifiable limit.”

China was another sticking point in previous negotiations. The Trump administration wanted to bring them into the treaty, while Russia refused to pressure Beijing to join. Gottemoeller said it makes sense to negotiate with China, but any constraints need to be in an area where China shares some equality with the other two countries.

The United States and Russia own more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, “so the notion of shoehorning them into New START never made sense,” she said.

Tom Countryman, ACA’s board chairman and former acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said extending New START opens the door to a trilateral dialogue between the U.S., Russia, and China on concerns about each other’s nuclear arsenals and postures.

“That’s the way to get started. It’s not easy to convince the Chinese that they have a stake in the process at this point, when their nuclear arsenal is so much smaller than that of either the United States or Russia,” he said.

But China isn’t wooed by the argument that it “should be honored to be at the big boys’ table together with the U.S. and Russia,” Countryman added. “If there ever was a time to make the effort, it is exactly at the moment that we are transitioning to new leadership in the United States.”

Gottemoeller said it’s possible China would be open to limits on intermediate-range ground-launched missiles as an alternative to banning them altogether.

“That’s an area we should really look into, because unlike in the era of the [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty, when we had the ban on all such missiles, we now know enough about monitoring and the presence or absence of warheads on the front ends of missiles,” she said. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t engage the Chinese on new limits. … They may have an interest in such negotiations because they, I’m sure, they want to prevent the deployment of such weapons in Asia.”

The 1987 INF Treaty eliminated all U.S. and Soviet ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles in the 500- and 5,500-kilometer (300- to 3,400-mile) range, and prohibited their future production or deployment.

The U.S. pulled out of the Cold War-era treaty last year. President Donald J. Trump said in February that the U.S. “will move forward with developing our own military response options and will work with NATO and our other allies and partners to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.”

“We stand ready to engage with Russia on arms control negotiations that meet these criteria,” Trump added.

Gottemoeller believes Moscow and Beijing could get on board with a regional ban or other caps on nuclear-tipped intermediate-range, ground-launched systems.

“We should be exploring some new directions, and we should bear in mind that, frankly, we’re beyond the approach that was taken in the INF Treaty, which was simply to ban all such missiles, whether nuclear or conventional,” she added.

Space Force Advocate to Lead GOP on House Defense Panel

Dec. 3, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, a leading Space Force proponent, will become the top Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee, his office said Dec. 3.

“It’s an honor to be selected by my colleagues to lead the Republicans as Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee for the 117th Congress,” he said in a release. “The nature of warfare is changing, and we must adapt accordingly. … I will work to modernize our military, combat our rising adversaries, and dominate the battlefields of this century.”

He beat out Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), ranking member of the seapower and projection forces subcommittee, and Mike Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member of the strategic forces subcommittee, for the new position, according to Politico.

Rogers led the strategic forces subcommittee, a panel that manages policy for issues including space and nuclear weapons, for four years. He has served on HASC for 18 years, and is also the sitting ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee. At home in East Alabama, Rogers represents Anniston Army Depot, Fort Benning, and Maxwell Air Force Base—a key installation for Air Education and Training Command that also hosts airlift planes.

He’ll take over for Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), who is retiring when his term ends Jan. 3, 2021. Thornberry has spent five years as the top-ranking Republican on HASC, serving as both chairman and ranking member.

Rogers first proposed the creation of a Space Corps in 2017 with fellow HASC member Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), now head of the strategic forces panel. That legislation laid the groundwork for launching a Space Force as part of the Fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act last year.

Past statements indicate Rogers will scrutinize the relationships between the budding Space Force and the rest of the armed forces. In December 2019, he criticized the Department of the Air Force for slow-walking the creation of a new space branch.

“The biggest problem came from the Air Force. It’s fighter pilot-dominated,” he said. “[Space] has been their cookie jar, their money pot for years, that they’ve always gone to take money out of when we didn’t give them what they wanted for air programs. … They did not want to see that money pot taken away.”

Territorial concerns will remain as the Space Force begins to bring in new members and programs from the Army and Navy departments, impacting budgets and planning across the Pentagon.

Rogers has cast doubt on the need for a full-fledged Department of the Space Force on par with the Air Force, Army, and Navy. Just as the Marine Corps has remained under the Navy, the Space Force may not become burdensome enough to require a larger organization, he said.

When the Space Force was created last year, Rogers also seemed skeptical of the Senate’s requirement to create an assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration as a counterpart to the Air Force’s procurement boss. Will Roper, who oversees both air and space acquisition as USAF acquisition chief, has questioned the need for that new position as well.

The Pentagon will need to earn Rogers’s support as he tries to build consensus on defense issues within his own party as well as with Chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).

Smith said Dec. 3 Rogers will carry on the committee’s bipartisan tradition of “sound, level-headed leadership,” while others praised him for carrying the conservative torch.

“He is a patriot who has proven to be one of the most effective voices in our conference for a strong national defense,” House Republican Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a release. “I am confident Mike will lead Republicans on the Armed Services Committee well over the next two years.”

3 Air Force Bases Delay PT Tests Until April

Dec. 3, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Airmen at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, and Scott Air Force Base, Ill., won’t have to take official physical fitness assessments until April 1, 2021.

“Based on local public health officials’ recommendation, the continued closure of indoor tracks, and extended state-wide restrictions of movement/gatherings, all fitness assessments at JBA will be postponed until 1 April 2021,” Col. Tyler R. Schaff, 316th Wing commander and the Andrews’ installation commander, wrote in a Nov. 30 memo that was shared on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page on Dec. 3 and whose authenticity was confirmed by a Joint Base Andrews spokesperson.

During a Dec. 2 Facebook town hall, Schaff admitted that he “struggled” with making the call, but he cited the following reasons for making the decision:

Maryland’s unpredictable winter weather, which has the potential to make safe outdoor workouts challenging, if not impossible
An extra-demanding workload, with the wing’s role in supporting the presidential inauguration in January
The stress levels of his Airmen. “What I’m offering is that’s something that they just need not worry about for a couple months as they go through the holidays,” he said. “There’s so much stress, [and] so many things to have anxiety over, whether it’s relationships, whether it’s finances——pick the topic—and so this is one area that I found that we can just say, ‘I have the authority to push this down for three months,‘ so I took the opportunity to do that.”

Schaff underscored the delay isn’t a get-out-of-fitness-free card. Rather, he said, it’s a chance “for them to continue their PT,” since fitness is still among the service’s “pillars of resiliency.”

He also noted that he and Col. Michael J. Zuhlsdorf, who leads the 11th Wing and serves as installation commander at Anacostia-Bolling, were on the same page about the decision, noting the D.C. base would follow suit.

“For those that may be listening from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Col. Zuhlsdorf and I synced up on that, and he signed the memo this week as well, so that we don’t have a ‘have and have-nots’ just a few miles down the road,” he said.

Scott made its announcement in a Dec. 1 memo posted to the installation’s website.

“This decision is based off guidance provided by public health officials and state and local restrictions currently in place,” wrote 375th Air Mobility Wing and Scott Air Force Base Installation Commander Col. Jeremiah S. Heathman in the memo.

Air Force guidance issued earlier this year authorizes commanders to make these kinds of delays, Air Force spokesperson Capt. Leah F. Brading confirmed in an email to Air Force Magazine.

Although there have been two other force-wide PT testing delays due to the pandemic, the service has yet to announce a third postponement and is slated to resume testing on Jan. 1, 2021.

As of 6 a.m. EST on Dec. 2, the Defense Department recorded 120,398 COVID-19 cases among its uniformed personnel, military dependents, and civilian employees and contractors. As of 2 p.m. EST on Nov. 30, the Department of the Air Force documented 14,520 cases among its Active-duty Airmen, Space Professionals, and Air Force Reserve Command personnel.

Report: Systemic Aircrew, Maintenance Issues Root Cause of DOD Mishap Rates

Dec. 3, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

A lack of flying hours and overworked maintainers are contributing to high rates of crashes and other aviation mishaps, according to a new Congressionally mandated report, which called on the services to quickly overhaul how they manage maintainers and pilot training.

The National Commission on Military Aviation Safety, in a report released Dec. 3, looked at more than 6,000 aviation mishaps, which included 198 deaths, 157 aircraft destroyed, and about $9.41 billion in losses, from 2013 to 2018. None of the losses were due to combat operations. The Defense Department has 120 days to formally respond to the report, so the Air Force is reviewing its findings and in the next few weeks the service Chiefs and safety center will meet with the commission on their findings as they form the response.

Although the Air Force saw a decrease in “Class A” mishaps, there was an increase in “Class C” mishaps, largely because of maintenance or other on-the-ground issues. Class A mishaps are any mishaps that results in the destruction of an aircraft, or permanent total disability of a person, or causes damage in excess of $2.5 million (from 2010-2019 it was $2 million.) A Class C mishap is one that results in an injury causing loss of more than a day of time off from work or damage between $60,000 to $600,000. (From 2019-2020, it was $50,000 to $500,000).

The commission visited 80 different bases and other sites, talking to about 200 different units who outlined myriad issues impacting the military’s aircraft fleets. The recurring themes were: not enough flying hours for pilots, maintainers distracted by excessive duties, inadequate prioritization of safety, insufficient data collection, a lack of consistent funding, and a “relentless” operations tempo, according to the report.

“These are great patriotic, young American people. Many of them have stayed with us and reenlisted and stayed on after 16 to 17 years of war. They know what right looks like. They know what the difference is between being a current pilot, and a proficient pilot for the mission tasks that they’re being asked,” said retired Army Gen. Richard A. Cody, the chairman of the commission. “But they’re frustrated with the ops tempo. They’re frustrated with the unpredictable funding. And they’re also frustrated a bit, being away from home as much as they are.”

Pilots’ Perspective

Pilots complained of a lack of real flying hours and an over reliance on simulators. While simulators are effective at practicing emergency routines and other tasks, they do not effectively replicate intense, real-world flying and can contribute to a lack of proficiency, they said.

“We think simulator time is great for emergency procedure training, and for other things,” Cody said “But when we went to the units, they were complaining that they had pilots coming out of the training base during this time period, with less flying hours and not really up to speed on all the types of flying that was required. And then the units were having to expand their flying hour dollars in the units to bring them up to speed at a time when their ops tempo was high.”

This starts in original flight training, where pilots graduate without enough seat time and move on to squadrons without enough experience in required aspects of flying, forcing operational squadrons to spend their own flying hours getting new pilots up to speed. Additionally, pilots are spending an extended period of time not flying after graduation because of other requirements, such as survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training. One pilot told the commission, “When I get to my unit, it will be six months since I’ve flown.”

In the training units, flying hours and the number of instructors has been cut, with one training unit for example only having 82 instructor pilots despite being authorized 114. This issue is highlighted as the Air Force is increasing its use of simulators in initial pilot training, through its Pilot Training Next initiative that seeks to further cut the amount of time a student needs to fly before graduating undergraduate pilot training.

Commanders in operational squadrons are issuing more waivers to keep pilots operational even though they haven’t met all the requirements, indicating “problems” that should be reported and tracked. While getting enough funding to increase flight hours is a systemic issue that will require a national approach and take a long time to address, the services should take smaller steps, such as tracking waivers to address trends in the short term so they can identify and fix some of the issues, Cody said.

Maintainers’ Morale

Morale on the ground with maintainers is a large problem across all services. Specifically, for the Air Force, a lack of experienced 5- to 7-level supervisors, in addition to a shortfall of maintainers overall, has proven to be problematic. While the Air Force’s usual trainer to trainee ratio should be 1:5 or 1:6, it is closer to 1:8 or 1:9, according to the report. These maintainers are finishing training without enough understanding of their duties—one maintainer told the commission that new Airmen could not tell the difference between a ratchet and a socket—and are going into squadrons that are understaffed, the report states.

“Knowing that with task saturation and sleep deprivation, work performance suffers. We see human factors and an increase in mishaps,” a USAF maintainer told the commission. “They don’t have experience and are tired. They are tired and are crying for help. The response is shut up and color.”

To address some of these issues, the commission recommends the military “fence” maintainers from additional duties so they can focus on their main role. The report, for example, suggested maintainers should not be tasked with doing other jobs, like providing security. The recommendation comes at time, however, when the Air Force is pushing forward with the idea of creating “multi-capable Airmen” under the Agile Combat Employment model.

The military needs to keep recruiting maintainers and treat the ones they have better through incentive packages and a career track that incentivizes promotions instead of having personnel change jobs to get promoted. Additionally, the services should incentivize maintainers who graduate from advanced schools, for example, providing an airframe and powerplant license “so they feel they are aviation professionals,” Cody said.

Other Systemic Issues

The commission also outlined other systemic maintenance issues, specifically with a lack of parts and depot maintenance, that does not support the needs of operational flying units. An Air Force major command representative told the commission that depots have been so deficient that “jets are coming out of the depot in worse shape than when they started.” This in turn leads to “greater workloads, increasing risk, lowering morale, and exacerbating already acute readiness problems,” the commission said in a briefing.

“For example, as the Commission heard during a visit at one Air Force base, when an actuator failed on a deployed aircraft in the Pacific, the only replacement parts were in two locations on the other side of the world. The maintenance group commander was forced to have an actuator taken off of a working plane at his home base in the United States and flown to the aircraft so it could be fixed,” the report states in an example of the problem.

The military has regularly operated under continuing resolutions from Congress since sequestration, which has led to unpredictable funding and impacted how squadrons plan to fly. One Air Force squadron commander told the commission, “We don’t plan exercises and [mission-related travel] because you don’t know if you will have funding. … I can’t plan my budget and make the purchases [needed] and can’t get them the [equipment] they need to do safe flight operations.” An Air Force Reserve unit commander added, “I redo the annual budget twice a quarter,” with Reservists preparing for months for a deployment that suddenly gets canceled.

Additional Recommendations

The group, which was mandated by Congress in 2019, briefed lawmakers in a closed hearing on Dec. 3. The commission specifically called on lawmakers and the Pentagon to:

Adopt an “aggressive and coordinated” approach to understand the physiological needs of aviators
Better reward and incentivize professional achievements of maintainers
“Firmly establish” safety responsibility in the Defense Department by creating a Joint Safety Council.
Update and modify Force Protection Key Performance Parameters to incorporate Aviation Human Systems Safety.
Link simulator sustainment to aircraft production, upgrades, and modifications.
Stop using continuing resolutions to fund national security, military readiness, and aviation safety.

A Look at Historic USAF Rates

The same day the commission released its report, the government-funded RAND Corp. released its own study on Air Force mishap rates from 1950-2018. In the report, researchers analyzed mishap data for 55 different aircraft types, specifically looking at Class A mishaps, destroyed aircraft, and pilot fatalities. The report found that broadly flight safety has improved, with the greatest improvement early on through the 1960s. Researchers found there are more mishaps early in an aircraft’s service life, with fewer crashes and other incidents as an airplane ages. Newer aircraft have also experienced fewer mishaps.

According to the RAND data, multi-engine aircraft experience fewer serious Class A mishaps compared to single-engine airplanes. Mobility and trainer aircraft experienced the lowest mishap rates, when compared to fighter and bomber aircraft.

RAND recommends that future research should consider trends in the causes of mishaps, such as operator error, equipment failure, and environmental factors, to better understand the importance of different drivers. There is not readily available data to support that sort of research, however, so detailed case studies are required, according to researchers.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:38 on Dec. 4 to correct the definition of a Class A mishap, which is any mishaps that results in the destruction of an aircraft, or permanent total disability of a person, or causes damage in excess of $2.5 million. Up until 2019, a mishap could be classified as Class A if there was $2 million in damage. It also includes the definition of a Class C mishap.

JADC2 Spurring Changes to Fighter Jets, Ops Centers

Dec. 2, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Aerospace experts and officials offered a peek into how joint all-domain command and control might begin changing the Air Force over the next few years, during the West Coast Aerospace Forum on Dec. 2.

Expect the upcoming fiscal 2022 and 2023 budgets to majorly accelerate combat networking demonstrations and related technology development, according to Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, during the event.

Video: Mitchell Institute on YouTube

“Speed does matter,” Hinote said. “I think that will be a major theme of ’22, when we start talking about what we have already learned and how quickly we can get something to our warfighters that allows them to begin to realize the power that is involved in connectedness.”

Future budgets could include more funding for military exercises and test events that prove out new ways of connecting Air Force systems to each other and across the armed forces. They are also expected to put a greater emphasis on developing and buying the tools to make combat operations faster and less manual.

“This is the most critical thing we are going to do as a joint force to make ourselves more capable,” Hinote added.

Officials pointed to ways in which the connectivity push is already shaping existing programs. Tech demos are spurring the military to reprioritize certain upgrades to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, particularly within the Block 4 batch of new hardware and software, according to Brig. Gen. David W. Abba, director of the Air Force’s F-35 integration office.

“We’re going to see us building a better Air Operations Center,” Hinote added. “The technologies are there to make the operations center better. It’ll be better this time in ’21, than it is in ’20. … We’re going to have on-ramps and we’re going to have [Advanced Battle Management System] left-behinds.”

That refers to tools the Air Force tests in its command-and-control trials that it then decides to adopt for regular use. The Kessel Run software coding group writes new applications for the AOC and has helped modernize the system since 2017, and USAF is improving how the outdated system is used through training initiatives as well.

Tim Grayson, Strategic Technology Office director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, questions how to create an Air Force inventory that pairs more traditional aircraft with things like data-crunching artificial intelligence algorithms, autonomous drones, and cross-platform communications. He envisions that war could eventually entail, for example, a pilot picking apps that best suits their missions as they fly.

“We actually did a series of tests recently that combined everything as modern as Wi-Fi and some of the more modern tactical radio standards running in parallel to Link 16 and [Tactical Targeting Networking Technology],” Grayson added. “To the warfighter, it was seamless—just like they were using the internet.”

Heather Penney, a senior fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, cautioned that the Air Force will need to gradually work toward universal communications.

“The way that we are able to create the connective tissue between these diverse platforms comes down to mission integration tools,” she said. She pointed to two DARPA programs known as SoSITE and STITCHES that can help combat assets “talk” and delegate tasks.

“These are the kinds of technologies that we need to begin investing in and actually fielding in order to be able to pragmatically move the force towards JADC2,” Penney said. The military needs tech-savvy personnel as well to update software and wield weapons in new ways on the fly.

JADC2 is gaining steam across the Defense Department, as high-level officials finalize a framework for how the military should pursue more integrated operations together. But many caution the idea will fall short without backing from the Pentagon’s top civilian.

“Progress by each of the services needs to be at the top of the agenda of the next Secretary of Defense, so that in every weekly staff meeting, he or she turns to the collective service Secretaries and asks the question, ‘How are we progressing in accomplishing JADC2?’” said David A. Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and dean of the Mitchell Institute. “It needs to be coordinated.”

The West Coast Aerospace Forum is cohosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, the RAND Corp., the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and MITRE.

Early COVID-19 Response ‘Defining Moment’ of International C-17 Wing

Dec. 2, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Strategic Airlift Capability’s Heavy Airlift Wing sprung into action early in the COVID-19 pandemic to deliver desperately needed protective equipment within weeks in what became a “defining moment” for the program, the HAW’s commander said.

The 12-year-old SAC, which includes three Globemaster IIIs jointly purchased and flown by the U.S. and 11 other nations out of Papa Air Base, Hungary, is tasked with delivering materiel, especially humanitarian aid, for its member nations. The wing’s expertise in international operations and established diplomatic connections made it uniquely suited to provide quick and effective airlift at a time when its member nations needed it most, HAW commander USAF Col. James Sparrow said during a virtual SMi Group conference on international airlift on Dec. 2.

“This is where we came into the picture for our member nations, we have the capacity and capability to push through logistics and diplomatic processes and in hours versus days we can get our aircraft into the air very quickly,” Sparrow said.

An emergency response mission for humanitarian aid takes precedence over all others within the wing, so when the requests came, HAW’s C-17s quickly took to the air.

The first mission took place March 25, when the wing tasked a C-17 to airlift a load of personal protective equipment from South Korea to member nation Romania. The wing flew three missions to Romania, delivering 145 tons of equipment. Sparrow, who flew part of the mission, said the skies and runways at the time were empty because the world was slowing to a stop as lockdowns began.

“It was kind of eerie, because there was no one flying,” Sparrow said. “I mean, the airways were pretty much quiet. … It was quite deafening, the silence.”

On April 5, the Netherlands, another member nation, requested support to airlift mobile intensive care units to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.

And on April 17, a HAW C-17 flew 20 tons of PPE and test kits from Beijing to Bulgaria. This mission marked the first time the consortium had flown into China, and required overcoming diplomatic and logistical challenges to accomplish it. The wing flew in additional personnel and their own pallets, and loaded boxes of equipment on the ground in China before returning.

The wing also helped its host nation on April 24, flying 45 tons of medical equipment from Malaysia to Budapest.

Sparrow said the wing’s three C-17s, which it has owned since its inception, are naturally facing maintenance issues as they age. That, coupled with increased taskings by member nations, has pretty much maxed out the wing. Although the wing is not currently considering adding airframes, more planes would be needed in the future if it were to expand its operations. If any new country were to join the consortium, they would need to work bilaterally with an existing nation to get a share of allotted flight hours, Sparrow said.

Since Boeing has ended the C-17 production line, this would require the USAF to sell the SAC second-hand C-17s, or other aircraft such as C-130s. Hungary recently purchased two Embraer KC-390 refueling and transport aircraft. While the country has not announced if they will be based at Papa Air Base or if they could be used in cooperation with the HAW, it is a “fascinating” idea, Sparrow said.

“I have not heard plans to actually base the aircraft here at Papa, to use them in cooperation with us, but that makes sense to me. I think, longer term, I would like to see that.”

Milley: After ‘Modicum of Success’ in Afghanistan, Drawdown Underway

Dec. 2, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Pentagon has approved plans to draw down to 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, focusing on a smaller number of bases and continuing the advising and training role as well as the counterterrorism mission.

“After 20 years, [and] two decades of consistent effort there, we’ve achieved a modicum of success,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley said on Dec. 2. However, over the last “five to seven years, at a minimum, we have been in a condition of strategic stalemate where the government of Afghanistan was never going to militarily defeat the Taliban. And the Taliban, as long as we were supporting the government of Afghanistan, was never going to militarily defeat the regime.”

Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller recently approved recommendations from U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and U.S. Central Command commanders, and efforts to withdraw troops by the Jan. 15 deadline are underway. While Milley would not provide specifics, he said the future U.S. laydown in the country will include “a couple of larger bases, with several satellite bases.”

Under an agreement with the Taliban, NATO forces are to leave Afghanistan by May if conditions are met, but President Donald J. Trump last month ordered the U.S. to pull thousands of troops out before the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration.

A total of 2,448 U.S. service members and civilian DOD personnel have been killed in Afghanistan and more than 20,000 troops wounded. The negotiated settlement is the only way the war could end, Milley said.

“That’s very odious for many, many people to think that we’re going to negotiate with someone like the Taliban,” he said. “But that is, in fact, the most common way that insurgencies end, is to negotiate a power-sharing settlement.”

Milley acknowedged that future force levels will be determined by the next administration, “But, for right now, … the plan we’re executing is to go to 2,500 troops.”

Raymond: Air Support Coming to US Space Command

Dec. 2, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Space Force’s top general this week indicated the Air Force will create an organization to offer aircraft and other resources in support of U.S. Space Command, making it the final military service to do so.

“All the services will have a service component, because this isn’t space for space’s sake,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond said Dec. 2 at the annual West Coast Aerospace Forum, which is cohosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, the RAND Corp., the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and MITRE. “This is a much broader view of joint warfighting and it’s going to require the full weight of the joint force to handle that.”

Video: Mitchell Institute on YouTube

Proponents of military space reform cheered U.S. Space Command’s revival in 2019 as a major step toward cohesive daily operations of technology like GPS and intelligence satellites. But now that the Air Force is handing off satellites and radars to the Space Force, it needs to offer up Airmen and assets to support the new command—or risk having a smaller part in the joint fight.

In October, the Marine Corps became the latest service to create a dedicated organization to work with SPACECOM. Marine Corps Forces Space Command, run by USMC Maj. Gen. Matthew G. Glavy, will work with SPACECOM to lend operational support to Marines in the field.

The other service components are the Space Force’s Space Operations Command, the Navy’s U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, and the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.

SPACECOM is different from other combatant commands in that its satellites and radars support other parts of the military, while also relying on other organizations to protect its resources. For example, its navigation satellites guide weapons fired by aircraft flown in Afghanistan to their targets, but those same aircraft can also attack enemies that are threatening satellite ground controls.

That dual purpose adds nuance to the conversation: what air, intelligence, and cyber assets are most important to SPACECOM’s mission, if they must also help protect it? Frank Rose, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defense policy who is now a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, suggested security forces could be in the mix as well.

A SPACECOM spokesperson said the organization is still exploring the possibilities with the Air Force.

“The Air Force is a critical partner in our mission, as evidenced by their recent support where they provided rescue forces on alert for NASA’s return to human space flight,” Maj. AnnMarie Annicelli said Dec. 1.

Annicelli was referring to the search-and-rescue specialists in the 45th Operations Group’s Detachment 3 at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla. Those Airmen fly HH-60 helicopters and HC-130 and C-17 planes for search and rescue, and deploy “Guardian Angel” boats to step in if something goes wrong for the humans launching or landing a NASA spacecraft over the ocean. They also rescue American astronauts if they are injured in a Russian Soyuz capsule landing, or if needed during commercial space launches and landings run by companies like SpaceX and Boeing.

Detachment members told Air Force Magazine earlier this year they’re not sure if their unique organization will be part of the Air Force or the Space Force in the long run. Right now, the group answers to SPACECOM as part of the 45th Space Wing—a Space Force organization.

“The reviews are happening right now on where’s the right place for us, and what does the unit need to really look like?” Maj. Chris Hearne, the detachment’s mission support division chief, said in February. He suggested falling outside the Space Force might be best. “We’re hoping the odds are in our favor.”

DOD Takes Hard Look at Bases, Deployments as Budgets Decline

Dec. 2, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Pentagon needs to take a look at the need for overseas bases, deployments, and exercises as the country grapples with the fiscal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and other priorities, the military’s top officer said Dec. 2.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, speaking at a virtual Brookings Institution event, said the Defense Department’s budget, after years of growth, will “start flattening out,” and “could actually decline significantly.” While a 5 percent level of real growth would be “ideal” to fund modernization and readiness programs, “I don’t anticipate that it will happen.”

“Your military is dependent upon a national economy,” Milley said. “And we have had a significant pandemic, we’ve had a downturn, and an economic situation nationally for almost going on a year now. We’ve got significant unemployment, and so on. So the most important priority that you need is to take care of the COVID piece, get that behind us, and breathe new life into the economy.”

Milley said the Defense Department needs to adjust its priorities to ensure it can optimize the money it does get, he said.

“We have to really take a hard look at what we do, where we do it,” he said. “… For example, there’s a considerable amount of money that the United States expends on overseas deployments, or overseas bases and locations, etc. Is every one of those absolutely positively necessary for the defense of the United States? Is every one of them tied to a national security interest? Is every one of those exercises that we do really, critically important? Real hard looks at everything that we do, I think, is warranted.”

The comments come as the U.S. is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and is also looking to downsize the number of personnel based across Europe. The Pentagon, under direction from former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, is also undergoing “zero-based reviews” of each combatant command to determine the correct force structure for each.

Milley’s warning is the latest among senior U.S. military officials that tough budget decisions are coming. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, in his “Accelerate Change or Lose” memorandum in August wrote that future budget pressures “will require the most difficult force structure decisions in generations. We cannot shy away from these decisions,” he wrote.