3 Airmen with the Tennessee Guard’s 118th Wing Die in Small Plane Crash

Sept. 10, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Three Airmen with the Tennessee Air National Guard’s 118th Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Group died Sept. 8 in a small aircraft crash near McMinnville, Tenn.

The Airmen are: Lt. Col. Shelli Huether, the director of operations of the 118th Intelligence Support Squadron; Capt. Jessica Wright, the assistant director of operations for the 118th ISS; and Senior Master Sgt. Scott Bumpus, the chief of current operations for the 236th Intelligence Squadron.

“Words can not begin to explain the shock, grief, pain, and dismay we feel having lost three remarkable members of our Guard family,” 118th Wing Commander Col. Todd A. Wiles said in a statement. “All were dedicated to the service of our nation. Their families are in our hearts and prayers.”

The three Airmen were flying in a Piper PA-28, registered to the Lebanon Flying Club, when it crashed near the runway at Warren County Memorial Airport, according to WSMV. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.

Lockheed Martin Hopes to Catch Up On F-35 Deliveries Delayed by COVID-19 by 2023

Sept. 10, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

Due to pandemic-related slowdowns, Lockheed Martin expects to deliver 122 F-35s in calendar year 2020—20 less than planned. To avoid surging and then slowing production on the line, which would increase cost, the delayed jets will be delivered over the next two years, company executive vice president for aeronautics Michele A. Evans said Sept. 9.

“It’s actually going to take us a couple of years to recover those 20 jets,” Evans said in an interview with Air Force Magazine. “What we don’t want to do is drive our capacity way up” to make up the shortage and then ramp down to a more efficient rate afterwards, she said, creating “spikes and low points.”

The company has an agreement with the F-35 Joint Program Office “that by 2023 we will have recovered whatever jets we don’t deliver this year, and it’s really helping them” by giving suppliers who may have been affected by the pandemic the ability to recover their production capacity more predictably.

“We’re really now at ramp rate on F-35, so we really want to stick at that rate, and we want our suppliers to optimize and drive cost efficiency,” she said. Leveling off at about 11 airplanes per month “makes sense in terms of capability and cost.”

Lockheed, which flowed significant funds to its supplier base to keep small enterprises in business, has developed an overall package addressing its COVID-related costs. It’s also working with the Pentagon to “arrive at a global settlement, … similar to what’s been done … in the past,” she said.

Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief Ellen M. Lord expects it will take five or six months to collect COVID-related costs incurred by the defense industrial base and provide between $10 billion and $20 billion in relief.

Lockheed also is in the early stages of negotiating the next large lot of F-35s with the JPO, with both sides looking for common ground on actual costs. “We’re still midstream” in talking to suppliers about their costs, she said, declining to say whether the F-35 unit cost will continue getting lower.

“Our objective is to continue to drive that down. This next lot has the Block 4 cost in it. We’ve worked really hard to drive that to be a neutral cost, so think of it as being able to add capability without increasing the cost. …That’s our focus in these negotiations.”

“We have provided a proposal to the JPO, and we’re waiting to get into fact-finding negotiations with them,” she added.

Evans said she does not view the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, the F-15EX, or the Digital Century Series concept as threats to the F-35, but rather as “complementary” to it. Lockheed is “excited” to work on the Digital Century Series, as well as moving into what the Air Force has sometimes called “sixth generation” aircraft.

While Evans acknowledged Air Force leaders have wondered openly about getting the full planned buy of 1,763 F-35s, this is usually in the context of sustainability, she said. If the support costs aren’t low enough, the service may not be able to “buy as many,” which is why Lockheed is focused on driving support costs down.

The company last year proposed investing $1.5 billion in sustainability efficiencies on the F-35 in order to reach a cost of $25,000 per flying hour by 2025. If implemented, the Performance Based Logistics deal would save $18 billion over the life of the program, the company has said. Evans doesn’t think there will be a deal “in the next few months,” however.

“We’re working through” a lot of pricing details with the JPO, she said. “Part of that is being open and transparent, getting everyone on the same page in terms of data, cost models.”

Rather, “It will probably take us into next year to get that to contract, but I think there’s momentum” toward it. The Navy has “had tremendous value out of their PBLs, and the Air Force is moving forward with us as well.”

The PBL is often misconstrued as taking work away from depots, but Evans maintained that “if anything with F-35, it’s going to drive more work into the depots.”

DOD Pushes Ahead on Training, Global Norms for Artificial Intelligence

Sept. 9, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Two years after creating the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to jumpstart AI development, the Defense Department is increasingly looking at how to train people to use that technology.

The Pentagon is working on an overarching strategy to educate all DOD personnel on how AI could factor into everything from business and human resources software to combat systems, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Sept. 9 at an AI symposium run by the department. Tech experts often argue that getting people to trust algorithm-powered software is just as important as getting the algorithms and the data themselves right.

That will be particularly crucial as the Joint Staff prepares a new joint warfighting concept that heavily depends on AI to process information and connect the armed forces in new, faster ways. The plan for joint all-domain command and control will be ready in December, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John E. Hyten said.

While the armed forces have not yet broadly adapted AI, and are relying on commercial industry to drive those advancements, the promise of AI looms large. It could help service members understand what moves they could make in combat, crunch intelligence imagery more effectively, smartly maintain aircraft and other vehicles, and even task a wingman drone with surveillance or strike missions. The department wants to incorporate algorithms into weapons targeting and aircraft maneuvering software, and is working toward planes that can dogfight with other aircraft on their own.

The military maintains that AI will be used largely as a helper, not to power machines that wage war on their own without human intervention. DOD released a set of five ethical guidelines in February for AI deployment that is responsible, equitable, traceable, reliable, and governable.

“The decision to go into a conflict cannot be based on artificial intelligence, it has to be based on human intelligence and the human decision process,” Hyten said. In other words, AI can provide a better picture of what’s happening around us, and tell us how we might want to react, but the U.S. could not start a war without people making that decision to proceed.

DOD hopes that teaching people about ethical AI use now will let DOD put that technology into practice.

“Over the last six months … the department has stood up a Responsible AI Committee that brings together leaders from across the enterprise to foster a culture of AI ethics within their organizations,” Esper said. “In addition, the JAIC has launched the Responsible AI Champions program, a nine-week training course for DOD personnel directly involved in the AI delivery pipeline. We plan to scale this program to all DOD components over the coming year.”

The JAIC is starting a six-week pilot program next month to train more than 80 defense acquisition employees how to incorporate AI into their programs—a move that can help spread the technology’s adoption across the department instead of relying on software developers to lead the charge.

“With the support of Congress, the department plans to request additional funding for the services to grow this effort over time and deliver an AI-ready workforce to the American people,” Esper said.

The JAIC is also looking to build global consensus on responsible and ethical AI development, as the U.S. criticizes Russia and China’s pursuit of AI for combat as well as domestic surveillance.

While some officials like Hyten say the U.S. is doing enough to keep up with Russia and China, others inside DOD say it’s underestimating what those countries are capable of in AI. Nicolas M. Chaillan, the Air Force’s chief software officer, said at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit on Sept. 8 that competing nations can outpace the U.S. because they are willing to cut corners.

“China doesn’t care about ethics, and I can tell you, they’re not going to let that slow them down,” he said. “They’re going to do whatever it takes to have AI, machine learning capabilities that are going to disrupt what we do. We need to be careful, right? Not always worrying about what people would think, or ethics, when really, we need to be leading. I don’t think we have that luxury right now.”

Still, most leaders are eager to frame the U.S. as a moral AI user and other countries as a threat.

“The contrast between American leadership on AI and that of Beijing and Moscow couldn’t be clearer,” Esper said. “We are pioneering a vision for emerging technology that protects the U.S. Constitution and the sacred rights of all Americans. Abroad, we seek to promote the adoption of AI in a manner consistent with the values we share with our allies and partners: individual liberty, democracy, human rights, and respect for the rule of law.”

Next week, the JAIC will start a new AI Partnership for Defense initiative with defense organizations from more than 10 foreign countries to “focus on incorporating ethical principles into the AI delivery pipeline,” Esper said. He did not say who will be involved.

Lord: COVID-19 ‘Hit’ on Defense Industry Still to Come

Sept. 9, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

The defense industrial base has yet to feel the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Defense Department already is planning to provide as much as $20 billion in assistance to industry.

“I would contend that most of the effects of COVID haven’t yet been seen,” and companies have “absorbed it up to this time,” said Ellen M. Lord, Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief, in a Defense News online seminar Sept. 9. Companies initially reacted to the pandemic by giving employees time off, “they stretched out production, [and] they paid a lot of people for working 100 percent when perhaps they were only getting 50 percent” output, Lord said.

“Now we get to the point where payments, and incentive fees, and award fees earned” are coming up, and “if we haven’t done the deliveries, that’s where you’re going to see the hit of a delayed response.”

The Pentagon has been collecting data on these effects, and wants to do “a one-time accounting” of expenses incurred from March 15-Sept. 15, Lord said.

Companies will be asked to “send us a proposal, showing us what the impact was, [and] we’ll assess them all at once and then get back” with a response. She expects it will take five or six months to collect the proposals, and match them to DOD’s own data.

While there is an authorization for such aid, it can’t be provided yet because “we don’t have an appropriation.”

“We believe we need an appropriation to maintain readiness,” Lord explained. “If we do not get that, … we are not going to get the [required] number of units delivered, [we’re] not going to maintain warfighter readiness, [and we’re] not going to move forward in modernization.”

The Pentagon wants to make that one-time disbursement and “see where we go from there.” Though the affected period won’t end for another week or so, Lord said she expects the payout will be “somewhere between $10 billion and $20 billion.”

Once the appropriation is made, the Pentagon will send out requests for proposals, and larger companies “will have to flow those RFPs through their supply chain” for reimbursement. She thinks it will take two months to get that data back.

“We want to look at all the proposals at once. It isn’t going to be first-in, first out,” she said. There will have to be a “very data-driven” application of the rules governing “what would be reimbursable and what’s not.”

Lord acknowledged that quarterly reports from defense companies have not been bad so far this year, but “they don’t reflect the hits that were taken.” There have been “mixed reports in terms of revenue and profitability.”

Some Pentagon aid has already been delivered. Lord noted that aviation engine manufacturers were hit hard by commercial aviation “grinding almost to a halt” and said quick Pentagon awards under the Defense Production Act “literally kept them in business.” The Pentagon has “put out almost a billion dollars in DPA Title 3 over the last six months.”

The Pentagon has warned that key domestic suppliers could face extinction, and Lord said the pandemic helped “tell that story” by shining a light on the problem, particularly as it affected small unmanned aerial systems and rare earth element production.

The pandemic also has highlighted the need to move with speed and “peel away all the non-value added bureaucracy,” Lord asserted. A lot of the workarounds created to respond to COVID-19 have been “codified in policy” and are aimed at avoiding “backsliding” to more cumbersome approaches, she said.

Acknowledging an acceleration of mergers and acquisitions during her tenure, Lord said she moved early on to ensure that all affected agencies reported on whether such moves would reduce competition. The Pentagon “worked closely” with the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, and insisted on “divestitures where needed.”

The Pentagon has tried to increase competition by bringing in more small businesses to get a “diverse group” of suppliers, she said.

“We like competition. It is our friend,” she said.

Air Force Must Change the Way It Thinks to Win New Age of Information Wars

Sept. 9, 2020 | By Shaun Waterman

To win wars in the information age, the Air Force needs to change the way it thinks, trains, and ultimately fights, including shedding a “geographical mindset,” service leaders said Sept. 9.

Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, who leads Air Force cyber forces as commander of the 16th Air Force, told the Billington Cybersecurity Summit that in cyberwarfare, data trumps geography. One of the biggest barriers the newly established 16th Air Force faced was “a geographical mindset, … the geographical boundaries we set for ourselves.”

“Since 9/11, our systems have been biased towards finding an individual threat or actor in a specific location,” he said. That bias extends to the way the service exercises and trains.

“Everyone knows Red Flag,” he said, referring to the major air combat exercise held several times a year at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., as well as bases in Alaska. “We all go there,” he continued, “and the culmination is when the red and blue forces meet in the skies.” The drill and the combat it simulates take place in a specific location.

Cyber threats are different, because one of the characteristics of online warfare is that an attacker can easily reach halfway across the world—it’s largely irrelevant where the threat is located. Likewise, Haugh said, the response to that threat has to be thought of, “not in terms of geographical [location], but in terms of the data we need to bring to bear.”

Data was at the heart of everything the service’s cyber forces did, Haugh added, “It’s all about the data.”

As an example, he noted the 16th Air Force’s dual role with regard to the U.S. military’s new joint all-domain command and control, or JADC2, concept of combat. “We’re both a customer of JADC2—in terms of its cuing some of our non-kinetic activities—and at the same time, we’re also a producer for it, injecting data” on the basis of which combat decisions are made.

Speaking later during the two-day event, USAF Lt. Gen. Bradford J. “BJ” Shwedo, the CIO for the Joint Staff, said there are other ways the service needs to change its mindset to get the maximum value from the convergence of cyber capabilities, electromagnetic warfare, and information operations. That convergence—the three elements together are referred to as information warfare—was the impetus for the formation of the 16th Air Force, also known as Air Forces Cyber or the service’s Information Warfare Numbered Air Force.

“It’s a synergistic cocktail,” when the three elements are brought together, Schwedo said. As an example, he mentioned the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop. “Most people, when they look at it, they think about their own loop, and the need to get it smaller and smaller, because the faster loop wins. But they forget there are two loops … The enemy has a loop too, and you can also win by making his loop longer and more lethargic.”

“That’s the information advantage you’re looking for” by combining cyber, electromagnetic warfare, and information operations, Schwedo said.

That convergence has impacted U.S. allies, too, added Maj. Gen. Marcus Thompson, who heads up information warfare for the Australian Defence Force.

“It’s forced us to change the way we fight,” he said during the same panel discussion, adding that it also raises “some questions.”

For instance, countering information warfare such as the Russian interference in the United States’ 2016 election, was “a whole-of-government, a whole-of-nation challenge,” he said.

“It’s about DIME,” said Thompson, using the acronym for “diplomatic, informational, military, economic,” which represents the four facets of national power. Australia has a minister for foreign affairs, a defense secretary, and a finance minister. But in common with other western democracies, it doesn’t have a minister for information. That absence of leadership for any non-military contributions to information warfare efforts “creates challenges in collaboration all across the [Australian] government and with our international partners,” he noted.

Space Force Fleshing Out Plans for Satellite Communications Use

Sept. 9, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Space Force is drawing up a strategy for its satellite communications enterprise that will govern how it uses a growing array of military and commercial technologies to connect the armed forces.

SATCOM allows the military to transmit combat data around the world, talk to the President in emergencies, and send instructions to the nuclear arsenal. As space assets become a greater priority in the Joint Force, officials want to ensure satellite signals and hardware can weather electronic and physical attacks to continue getting messages through.

The service is collaborating with U.S. Space Command, the organization that operates SATCOM systems on a daily basis, to flesh out how satellites, ground terminals, and data links should be managed. A strategy document will drill down into more specifics past the broad-brush vision paper that the Space Force released in February after working with industry.

Military and commercial SATCOM programs have gradually consolidated under the Space Force, which is now figuring out what technologies it needs next and how to buy those services in new ways.

“The [fiscal 2022] budget is now the next step, … and we’ve continued to lay in both budget line items for being able to maintain a common operating picture of our SATCOM links in theater, as well as continuing on prototypes,” Lt. Gen William J. Liquori Jr., deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, requirements, and analysis said during the annual Defense News conference Sept. 9. One day earlier, Liquori pinned on a third star and officially transferred from the Air Force into the Space Force.

“There are certainly inputs there for protected tactical waveforms so that we can do protected communications with more than just our traditional military purpose-built systems, but ideally, to use that waveform on other systems as well,” he added.

The strategy could provide a roadmap for how to respond if SATCOM assets are threatened or how to connect to different types of communications satellites and wavelengths, no matter the mission. It may explain how military personnel should work with commercial companies operating their own systems as part of a civil-military network, or it may offer more insight into the Space Force’s plans to replace the Wideband Global SATCOM program, which allows commanders overseas to control tactical forces.

Liquori anticipates Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond will publish planning guidance in the coming months to shape future budget-building as well. Fiscal 2022 is the second full year the Space Force will have a standalone budget as a separate service within the Department of the Air Force, and officials are still figuring out how to approach those funding requests.

U.S. Military to Pull 2,000-Plus Forces from Iraq

Sept. 9, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The U.S. military plans to withdraw more than 2,000 troops from Iraq this month, leaving about 3,200 troops in the country to continue advising Iraqi forces and targeting the remnants of the Islamic State group.

U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., speaking in Baghdad, said the move comes as Iraqi forces have made “great progress.” McKenzie did not clarify if the troops would return home or shift to other bases within the area of responsibility.

“This reduced footprint allows us to continue advising and assisting our Iraqi partners in rooting out the final remnants of ISIS in Iraq and ensuring its enduring defeat,” McKenzie said. “This decision is due to our confidence in the Iraqi Security Forces’ increased ability to operate independently. The U.S. decision is a clear demonstration of our continued commitment to the ultimate goal, which is an Iraqi Security Force that is capable of preventing an ISIS resurgence and of securing Iraq’s sovereignty without external assistance.”

The move is the first reduction in forces inside Iraq within at least the past four years. The remaining 3,200 troops will be the lowest number of troops in the country since early 2015, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The decision comes as the U.S. is also withdrawing forces from Afghanistan, where the Pentagon expects to have fewer than 5,000 troops in November.

Within Iraq, the U.S. and coalition militaries have been handing over control of bases to Iraqi forces in recent weeks. Last month, for example, the U.S.-led coalition withdrew from Camp Taji—a major operating base north of Baghdad. The ceremony was the seventh time this year the coalition has transferred control of a base to Iraqi forces.

Thornberry Expects NDAA Conference Report After Election

Sept. 9, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The House and Senate fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act conference report is not likely to come together until after November’s election, once intense political rivalries subside, the House Armed Services Committee’s ranking member said.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told the Defense News Conference on Sept. 9 that even though the House version was unanimously passed in committee and received a “strong” vote on the floor, its differences will not be worked out for months because of “the times we are living in.” Thornberry pointed to the provision in the House bill and Senate bills that would require the Pentagon to rename bases that bear the names of Confederate leaders, a measure President Donald J. Trump has said he would veto, and one Thornberry acknowledged comes with highly partisan emotions.

“I don’t know how that will come out in conference, but I do think we are in a time where neither party is rewarded for compromise and coming together and getting things done,” Thornberry said. “Both sides have incentives to kind of stake out your positions and go to battle. And so, it’s not just one provision I think that prevents us from getting a conference report, it’s the times that we are living in. On the other hand, we should be able to get a conference report pretty quickly after the election.”

One of the other provisions that differs between each chamber’s bills is the creation of a new funding initiative aimed at the Pacific. The House’s version includes about $3.6 billion for its Indo-Pacific Reassurance Initiative, while the Senate proposes $6 billion for a Pacific Deterrence Initiative. The proposals are different in scope and levels of funding, but Thornberry said the important point now is that both lawmakers and Pentagon leaders see the importance of building up the presence in the region.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper now “supports a version [of the Pacific funding initiative], he was reluctant for a while, so we’ll work out the details,” Thornberry said. “The key thing is that if the Indo-Pacific is our priority theater, we need to put our money where our mouth is.”

As the Pentagon shifts its eyes more to the Indo-Pacific, it has announced measures to draw down some forces in Europe following Trump’s pronouncements that the U.S. military will withdraw troops from Germany. Thornberry said he and other members of the Armed Services Committee have questions about how this was rolled out, because “the way it was announced sounded like a personal kind of retribution.”

The White House announced the moves in July, saying Germany was “delinquent” and not spending enough to keep U.S. forces in the country. There can be a discussion about moving forces out of Germany and repositioning them to other regions, Thornberry said—“Yeah, you can make that case, but it needs to be made on a strategic basis in consultation, not some announcement by some unnamed White House staffer that looks to be a personal sort of issue.”

Joint Exercise Brings New Battle Management Ideas to Europe

Sept. 8, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

U.S. and European military forces will try to push the boundaries of how the alliance responds in the face of air and missile threats during the “Astral Knight” exercise this month.

The second annual Air Force-led exercise hopes to mirror the Pentagon’s broader push to proactively connect conventional combat forces with those in space and cyberspace, using more technology like artificial intelligence and cutting bureaucratic hurdles. It’s an opportunity to more closely integrate the U.S. military as well as the vehicles and weapons owned by other countries.

According to the Pentagon, this year’s iteration of Astral Knight will bring together foreign Airmen with American Airmen, Soldiers, and Sailors to practice combat operations at Polish air bases and elsewhere in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom.

American and European troops will mimic deployments to set up ground-based air defenses using technologies like the Patriot surface-to-air missile system. Patriots can track and take out incoming missiles and aircraft, and allied forces can practice feeding data from a broader range of military vehicles to that radar so it can react faster.

“The exercise will enhance the combined U.S. and European task force’s ability to control defensive fires in central and Eastern Europe and refine the NATO kill chain,” the Army said of Astral Knight, which will run alongside Lithuania’s Tobruq Legacy exercise. “It will also enable the development of standard operating procedures.”

U.S. Army Europe and the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command are working with the Air Force to create a network of sensors that partner nations can use as well. Much of defense technology is not built to talk with other systems, and the militaries are figuring out which data translators or national and bilateral agreements they need to work better together.

“Figuring out what is available now to connect, to be able to look at sensor laydowns and build domain awareness first, is probably the quickest thing that we can offer to the [joint all-domain command and control] effort,” Brig. Gen. Adrian L. Spain, the plans, programs, and analyses director for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, said during a Sept. 8 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event.

Video: Mitchell Institute on YouTube

If all goes according to plan, the exercise could show whether European countries could act on allied intelligence and early warnings to take out a cruise missile or other threat—possibly fired by Russia or another regional adversary—that is headed for U.S. assets or the homeland itself.

“In an evolution of where we are today, we have the connections that allow us to know when a threat is about, hopefully, hours away,” Spain said. “Along the way to [the] U.S. and U.S. forces, it’s going through partner nations, and maybe there’s somebody else that can take that thing out, whatever that threat is, on the way before it ever gets close to us. But even if not, with enough advanced warning, we can disperse.”

After that point, USAFE would put its “agile combat employment” concept into action, launching teams of multiskilled Airmen who could respond to a variety of emergency situations. Agile combat employment envisions spreading forces around to smaller airfields and training them to both prepare aircraft and load munitions so pilots can take off on short notice, without relying on major military hubs in countries like England.

“The enemy … isn’t going to be able to take this low-risk, unattributable potshot at us, knowing that they have a high-degree-of-success opportunity by doing so,” Spain said. “Certainly, it can take out a pretty significant portion of forces if they get it right. If we’re able to disperse effectively, if we’re able to warn effectively, and then if we’re able to defend effectively later, all of those things cut down the percentages-of-success rate for an adversary and increase the cost for them.”

Astral Knight offers a chance to practice before the Air Force brings its Advanced Battle Management System demonstration to Europe in early 2021. ABMS is the service’s main initiative to make joint all-domain command and control a reality, using periodic experiments that try to connect the armed forces across longer distances and in increasingly complex scenarios.

The exercises come as Russian aircraft continue flying at unsafe distances from U.S. and foreign aircraft, endangering the aircrews, and as American bomber deployments in the region aim to reassure partner countries that the NATO alliance is strong.

It’s a busy time for U.S.-European training, as U.S. B-52 bombers have collaborated with Ukrainian Su-27s in a show of solidarity to deter Russian aggression, and B-52 bomber aircraft have also trained alongside Norwegian F-16 fighters. In addition, the “Noble Partner” exercise is underway in Georgia to showcase international infantry maneuvers, helicopter attack, and rotor-wing medical evacuation operations, as well as a live-fire exercise, among other events in the region.

“The bomber task force missions are going to continue to emphasize the partnerships and interoperability and integration with partner air forces, and where possible, ground forces,” Spain said. “We’ve done some work with the Navy in the Black Sea as well. That was highly effective, and certainly an opportunity for growth there. I think you’re going to see us take advantage of that as often as we can, and as often as is reasonable.”