4 Keys to the Election Results for the Air & Space Forces

Nov. 1, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

On the eve of Election Day, the U.S. Senate is projected to swing ever so narrowly to the Republican party, while the race for the presidency has Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in a virtual tie, and control of the House of Representatives remains anyone’s guess.

Regardless of who wins the White House, however, a host of changes are headed our way, many of which will impact the Air Force, Space Force, and the rest of the military family. Here are four of them.

Civilian Leadership

Whoever wins the White House gest to reshape the civilian leadership of the national security enterprise, beginning with the Pentagon. The Defense Secretary and his underlings and the Air Force Secretary and his civilian leadership team are all appointed positions, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

When administrations change, so do those civilian leaders, usually on or before Jan. 20, when the new president is inaugurated. The rare exception: President Barack Obama’s decision to ask his predecessor’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, to stay on. That was especially unusual given that Gates was appointed by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and Obama was a Democrat elected on a platform of change. Yet Gates didn’t just stay a short while. He remained secretary until June 30, 2011.

That’s not likely to happen this time. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, 71, and closely aligned with President Joe Biden, will relinquish the job he has held the past four years. He has endured cancer and hospitalization during his tenure.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, is another story. Kendall has indicated he would like to stay in office. Though he will be 76 in January, he remains healthy, vibrant, and effective. Whether he stays or not depends not only on who wins the White House but also who the White House chooses for Defense Secretary.

If Trump wins, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is seen by multiple media outlets as a leading contender for Defense Secretary. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cotton has been an advocate for Air Force programs, and recently suggested the Air Force should acquire more than the 100 B-21 bombers in its current plan.

If Harris wins, however, America’s first woman president could appoint its first female Secretary of Defense. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth is one leading candidate cited by multiple media outlets, but Michelle Flournoy, a former Undersecretary for Policy under Gates during the Obama years, is also a leading candidate. Flournoy narrowly missed out on the job four years ago.

Wormuth admired Kendall’s work to define seven “operational imperatives” for the Air and Space Forces and sought to do the same for the Army. She would face speticism, however, over her ability to treat the services fairly after a long tenure leading the Army. Flournoy has been criticized for connections to the defense industry, but her policy credentials are widely respected and her industry ties are unlikely to prove troublesome.

A potential dark horse is Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), identified by POLITICO as a contender. His appointment would put an Air Force skeptic atop the Pentagon. Over more than a decade as the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Smith has been a consistent and vocal critic of the F-35, and an ardent opponent of the land-based leg of the nuclear triad. Smith opposes the Sentinel ICBM, and has argued it is in need of a “rethink.”

Control of Congress

The Hill gives the Republicans a 75 percent chance of winning the Senate, and Republicans hope to have at least 52 of 100 seats; they could get as many as 54. Assuming they win the majority, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, would become chairman.

Wicker pressed for a $55 billion increase in defense spending last spring, and laid out a detailed defense modernization plan at the same time, championing the Air Force, in particular. He has called for acquiring at least 340 fighter jets over the next five years than current Air Force plans would buy and has advocated for doubling the planned B-21 fleet to 200. He reiterated that message in a Wall Street Journal op-ed co-authored with fellow Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt for the Wall Street Journal.

Key to achieving that agenda, regardless of who wins the presidency, is the outlook in the House. Should Republicans retain their current majority, Rep. Mike Rogers (Ala.) would remain Chairman. Often credited as the main legislative driver for creating a Space Force, Rogers has two more years before House Republican rules would force him to relinquish the seat. Rogers has fought hard to get U.S. Space Command to move to Alabama, and appeared to have won the contest in the waning days of the Trump administration. The decision was later reversed, however, and could be open for debate again if the chips go the Republicans’ way.

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) is seen as a potential successor to Rogers, and would expand his influence as chair of the Tactical Air and Land subcommittee if Republicans hold the House. Wittman has been supportive of the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, and while he has shown frustration with the F-35 program and hails from a heavily Navy district, that district also contains Langley Air Force Base, home to Air Combat Command and the Air Force’s F-22 fleet.

If Democrats take control of the House, however, Smith would regain the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee. That is, unless he moved to the Pentagon. In that case, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) could gain prominence. She is an Air Force veteran who previously helped lead the committee’s Quality of Life panel.

Races to Watch

Several lawmakers who have been key figures in defense in recent years are facing serious headwinds as they fight for reelection.

Two of the Air Force’s biggest boosters, both Nebraska Republicans, face tough reelection battles: Rep. Don Bacon and Sen. Deb Fischer.

Bacon is a retired Air Force brigadier general who has pushed to recapitalize the fighter fleet, particularly in the Air National Guard. He currently leads the House Armed Services Quality of Life subcommittee, and has championed substantial pay raises for junior enlisted members to spur recruiting and retention. In a district that includes Offutt Air Force Base, Bacon is facing fierce competition from state Rep. Tony Vargas, whom he defeated in 2022 by a mere 2.66 percentage points. Polls show him trailing Vargas in a race that has drawn national leaders to invest time and effort on both sides.

Fischer—chair of the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee—is being challenged by an independent, Dan Osborne, a Navy veteran who has said he will caucus with neither party if elected. In a state that’s home to U.S. Strategic Command, Fischer has been a fierce advocate for nuclear modernization. Polls show a tight race, even though Osborn lacks party backing and resources.

Another surprising race has Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Senate Democrat in a mostly Republican state, under duress. Tester, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, has been a strong advocate for ICBM modernization, a key factor for a state that is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base. But the Sentinel ICBM program has been hit with cost and schedule overruns, and Tester has been hit with a surprisingly strong campaign from Republican Tim Sheehy, a political novice

Veterans in Congress

There are 30 former Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard members running for Congress, only two of whom are incumbents, according to a Military Times analysis. Among them, media analytics specialist FiveThirtyEight calculates that:

11 have at least 99 percent chance of victory

Three others are favored to win

And 16 are either not favored or have no chance to win.

The net result is that Congress should gain a number of members with Air Force roots, among them Republicans Sheri Biggs (S.C.) and Troy Downing (Mont.) and Democrat Herbert Conaway Jr. (N.J.)

KC-46s Deploy to Middle East for 1st Time

Nov. 1, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

KC-46 aerial tankers from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., landed in the Middle East in early October, beginning the refueler’s first-ever operational deployment.

KC-46s previously operated out of Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in 2022, as part of an Employment Concept Exercise meant to help validate and clear the Pegasus for operational duty. But not until now have KC-46s deployed for full-scale operational use, according to a news release. The deployment establishes a regular rotation of KC-46s in the Middle East for years to come.

In September 2022, Air Mobility Command cleared the KC-46 for worldwide deployments and combatant commander taskings, including in combat. Since then, Pegasus jets have participated in training exercises, stateside taskings, and operated in the Indo-Pacific, and Europe, and South America. But combat operations were limited.

“While the KC-46A has operated in CENTCOM previously, this deployment is building the foundation for sustained KC-46A expeditionary operations,” said Maj. Andrew Doenitz, commander of the new expeditionary squadron. “It’s been a team effort across the enterprise to prepare for the KC-46A Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron stand-up, and I’m proud of our Airmen for playing a role in this historic achievement.”

The KC-46s deployed and were ready to operate rapidly, the Air Force said. Given only 72 hours notice to generate forces and deploy, the 305th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron was established for the deployment. Several support agencies from the 305th Air Mobility Wing and 87th Air Base Wing across Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., worked to get the entire Mission Generation Force Element trained, equipped and prepared to deploy.

The unit made its first operational sortie Oct. 8. The Air Force has surged aircraft into the region as tensions rose between Iran and Israel.

The Air Force called the 305th a mission generation force element, new nomenclature related to its evolving force generation and deployment model. It carried with additional capabilities, including expanded connectivity, increased fuel capacity, and onboard aeromedical evacuation equipment.

The aircraft also brought a Deployable Air Refueling Support Hub kit containing every mission planning cell component they needed and enabling the unit to begin air tasking orders within 48 hours of arrival.

Air Forces Central deactivated KC-10 and KC-135 Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadrons, though KC-135s continue to operate in the region.

Airmen and KC-46s from Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H., had been poised to make the first Pegasus deployment, but that plan was nixed by “emerging requirements within the AOR” and the tasking went to the 305th Air Mobility Wing instead, the release noted.

Allvin Says CCA Will Be ‘Pathfinder’ for New Way of Acquisition: Design over Sustainment

Nov. 1, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force structured its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program to produce autonomous drones that won’t have long service lives, ensuring the service can and must move on to new systems optimized for a changing threat, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said this week—a pathfinder for a new, broader emphasis on design rather than sustainment.

The first CCA contractors—Anduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems—are able to keep their costs down “because we didn’t put into the mix the idea of long sustainment; of depot maintenance,” Allvin said at an Oct. 31 event with the American Enterprise Institute.

“I don’t want a 30,000-hour on engine on that thing,” he said of the CCA drones. “I don’t want it for that long. I want to be able to upgrade it to something else, without it being cost-prohibitive because we’ve already sunk so much cost” into a sustainment enterprise.

Allvin has made “agility” a defining them of his tenure as chief, and CCAs will fit that theme by making sure the Air Force is not “sunk in one particular platform for decades and decades,” he said.

With CCAs, “we want to incentivize design rather than sustainment,” Allvin said. Deciding to build CCAs as short-lived systems means “you can leverage technology and more rapidly upgrade if you change the paradigm.” He said the service plans to “broadcast that to industry,” and this approach will be central to the new Integrated Capabilities Command.

Beyond its main goals of providing “affordable mass,” and achieving air superiority in contested battlespace, the CCA program “also helps to reshape industry a bit on where we want to go as an Air Force,” Allvin said.

The Air Force sees the initial tranches of CCAs as autonomous, uncrewed aircraft that will fly in formation with crewed fighters, carry extra weapons for them, and extend the reach of their sensors. Wargames conducted over the last two years also indicate CCAs could offer a powerful support to the combat air forces if launched on their own to attack high-value targets and not directly in support of crewed fighters.

The Air Force has gone back and forth about whether CCAs should be “attritable”—meaning they are cheap enough that USAF can easily bear their loss or use them on one-way missions—or whether they ought to be more traditionally sustained, but with frequent modular upgrades. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said that, at about $30 million a copy, new CCAs will not be disposable, but that the resistance to using them on one-way missions will decline as they near the end of their useful lives.

Allvin’s remarks follow on comments he made at a June AFA “Warfighters in Action” event, when he advocated for CCAs with limited operational lives. He said then he doesn’t want CCAs that will “last for 25 or 30 years,” arguing a longer service life would require more capability and thus more cost to make it worthwhile, limiting how many the Air Force can buy.

“How do we solve for agility?” Allvin asked at AEI. The answer is to change the Air Force’s “built to last” mantra to “built to adapt,” he said.

“Technology is moving so fast, the way we’re approaching Collaborative Combat Aircraft is being very strict with the requirements and saying we’re going to build for speed: speed to ramp and for the ability to be able to update … mission systems and modify as technology offers,” he said.

At the AFA event, he emphasized, “we aren’t building a sustainment structure” for CCAs. Ten years from now, the first CCA “won’t be as relevant, but it might be adaptable,” and that’s why the Air Force is mandating that the aircraft be modular, in order to keep them somewhat relevant.

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command, said at an AFA event in July that he expects CCAs to be stored in a hangar—not in a box—and that training will take place with a small number of them. The rest will be kept in “flyable storage” in order to save on sustainment, but will also be “ready to go” at a moment’s notice, he said.

“They won’t fly that often,” he said, but pilots and other operators will practice directing CCAs in simulators, which will also save on sustainment costs.

Facing Growing Threats, Space Industry Expands Its Cyber Warning Center

Nov. 1, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

The Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a U.S. industry-run nonprofit that helps commercial space operators share data about cyberattacks and other threats, is expanding to the U.K. and other American allies, aiming to build a global organization that will protect civilian space assets as geopolitical tensions and the dangers of extra-terrestrial war grow.

Set up five years ago in Colorado Springs, Space ISAC has a watch center where analysts from U.S. Space Command and ISAC member companies pore over real-time data feeds recording cyberattacks, space weather events, and other potential threats to satellites, and issue bulletins for members reporting imminent dangers and suggesting defensive measures.

”From the very beginning, given the global nature of space infrastructure, and the space environment, we anticipated that Space ISAC would be a global organization, with partners all over the world,” Sam Visner, chairman of the Space ISAC board of directors, told Air and Space Forces Magazine.

The move to the U.K. comes as the war in Ukraine, which opened with a cyber attack against the ground terminals of U.S. satellite operator Viasat, has provided repeated demonstrations of both the centrality of commercial space capabilities to modern warfare and their fragility.

The Space ISAC have agreements in place to expand to Australia as well, Visner said, mentioning the AUKUS framework, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the U.K. and U.S. focused on defense technologies. Space ISAC is also looking to expand to Japan and possibly South Korea, he added, arguing that democracies have to work together in space.

“We are allies and partners because our relationships are founded on our values,” Visner said. “There’s a lot we can gain from working with allies and partners, and we think they gain a lot from us.”

The Space ISAC U.K. forum was established Oct. 10, Space ISAC Executive Director Erin Miller told Air and Space Forces Magazine.

“That’s the process, first we have a forum, and then we start getting analysts assigned [to work in the watch center] and establish a [U.K.] hub for the watch center,” she said. The time difference would help extend the center’s hours of operation without having to assign analysts to work overnight. “It’s a ‘follow the sun’ model,” she said.

In the U.S., the Space ISAC’s government partners assign analysts to work in the watch center, she said. It wasn’t clear whether that would also happen in the U.K., but there would be “bi-directional sharing” with government partners. She said that she expected U.K. members would be just as keen to assign analysts to their local watch center hub as their counterparts are in the U.S.

“Usually they’re eager to do it,” she said, adding the posting offers unique opportunities for analysts to learn new skills and grow their knowledge base. “There’s not very many places you can go, if any, to learn cybersecurity, space, and intelligence all at the same time,” she said.

One British executive, who wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, described the Space ISAC’s arrival in the U.K. as “the cavalry coming,” referencing the ISAC’s information-sharing portal and the other collaborative tools the organization offered.

“We need these [collective defense] capabilities,” the executive said.

The British military’s U.K. Space Command and its civilian counterpart, the U.K. Space Agency, through their National Space Operations Centre, provides bulletins for industry partners about space weather, space debris, and potential orbital conjunctions—where the orbital tracks of two different satellites come close enough that there’s the possibility of a collision. And the National Cyber Security Center, part of GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA, runs a Space Information Exchange which distributes a weekly email round up of relevant threat intelligence and cyber attack reporting. But executives say there’s no real time cyber warning service like the one Space ISAC offers available for the U.K. space sector.

“It comes down to resources. … The government spending on space is an order of magnitude smaller than in the U.S.,” said Kevin Jones, a former RAF aviator who now works for CGI, a multinational IT services and products vendor headquartered in Canada.

The U.S. government spent about $73 billion on space in 2023, according to Statista, out of a global spend by all governments worldwide of $117 billion. The UK government spent just $1.45 billion.

The effects of that trickle down into the private sector, Jones explained. “In the U.S., you have the big primes, the 800-pound gorillas. In the UK, the space sector is about 1,700 companies and most of them are small- and medium-sized businesses,” he said.

The resource issue isn’t just about money, Jones noted. “Another big difference between the UK and the U.S.o is that you have these federally funded research and development centers,” he said, referring to institutions like Mitre’s National Cybersecurity FFRDC and the Aerospace Corporation, both of which are members of the Space ISAC. “That independent advisory role is very important,” Jones said.

CGI’s U.K. Space Defence and Intelligence business unit, which provides secure ground systems for space operators including the U.K. Space Agency and U.K. Space Command, is one of the first sign-ups for Space ISAC’s U.K. forum.

“Obviously, we see the value in being able to contribute to and consume threat data whether it be about natural hazards or a man made cyber or electromagnetic attack against any of our systems in the space domain,” said Jones.

CGI is sending one of its analysts to study at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs campus, taking a new course to train space information systems security officers. It’s the only training program designed to combine cybersecurity and space expertise, he said. “It’s brand new and it’s very exciting,” he said.

The ISAC also represented a “fantastic opportunity” to learn more about the capabilities other companies were bringing to the table, said Jones. “The space sector is experiencing phenomenal growth. So keeping track of who is doing what in the sector, knowing who is bringing what to the party, that is a good value.”

Jones added that CGI’s experience demonstrated all three of those value propositions: “We’ve raised our collective defense, because we can understand, identify and mitigate threats and attacks. We’ve improved our intellectual capacity. We’ve improved our ability to network and talk,” he said.

Jones added that the expansion is not just timely, but badly needed.

“Space ISAC is an industry-paid for, industry-led vehicle. Industry is taking responsibility to get after this problem,” said Jones.

Thousands of North Korean Troops Prepping to Join War Against Ukraine, US Says

Oct. 31, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

About 8,000 North Korean troops are in Russia’s Kursk region preparing to join the war against Ukraine, the Biden administration said Oct. 31. In its most complete estimates of North Korean support for Russia’s war thus far, officials said there are some 10,000 North Korean troops now in all of Russia.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken disclosed the troop levels at a press conference alongside their South Korean counterparts following annual security talks.

South Korea was the first to cite North Korean troops traveling to Russia and the U.S. eventually confirmed the assessment. North Korea has provided millions of artillery shells and numerous ballistic missiles to Russia, according to U.S. and South Korean officials, but to this point, it had not provided troops. Participating in combat marks a major escalation of Pyongyang’s involvement.

It is not yet clear what Russia is offering in return. Moscow could provide Pyongyang help with conventional and even nuclear weapons technology, the South Korean government has suggested.

“We’ve not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces, but we would expect that to happen in the coming days,” Blinken said.

“Russia has been training DPRK soldiers in artillery, UAVs, basic infantry operations, including trench clearing, indicating that they fully intend to use these forces in front-line operations,” Blinken added, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

U.S. officials say the deployment of North Korean troops exposes Russian president Vladimir Putin’s desperate need for manpower. Russian forces are suffering more than 1,000 casualties per day, according to Western estimates, and the Kremlin wants to avoid the politically unpopular step of mobilizing more troops.

The U.S. has not said how it plans to respond, saying it is consulting with allies.

“Make no mistake, if these North Korean troops engage in combat or combat support operations against Ukraine, they would make themselves legitimate military targets,” Austin said.

Whether that was an indication the U.S. might change its policy on its military support for Ukraine is unclear. A range of American adversaries—North Korea, Iran, and, to a lesser extent, China—have been providing arms to Russia or assisting Russia’s defense industry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly appealed for permission to use American-made long-range weapons to strike inside of Russia. But the Biden administration has not allowed that, seeking to avoid escalation with Russia and downplaying the military utility of those weapons.

South Korea, meanwhile, has raised the possibility that it could counter the North’s support for Russia by providing Ukraine with weapons made in South Korea.

“We need to see the level of involvement of the DPRK forces in Russia, and we also need to watch what kind of quid pro quo the DPRK will be receiving from Russia,” South Korea’s foreign minister Cho Tae-yul said in the joint press conference. “So we will have to watch that before making a decision as to the weapons support that we will be providing to Ukraine.”

Update to Study Finds No Higher Cancer Rates in Missile Community

Oct. 31, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Based on an updated and expanded data set, the Air Force now says the preliminary statistics show no significant difference in cancer rates between Airmen who worked on nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and the rest of the Air Force or the general population.

That finding marks a change from eight months ago, when the service released results from the first phase of an epidemiological study showing increased rates of breast and prostate cancers among the missile community.

However, still more data remains to be analyzed, and officials cautioned that final takeaways from the study are not yet determined.

Officials shared their findings during a virtual town hall with scores of participants Oct. 31, the latest in a series of updates on the Missile Community Cancer Study that has been going on since March 2023.

In addition to environmental sampling at ICBM bases, researchers from the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine are looking to see if missileers and other support forces are diagnosed with cancer at higher rates. In February, they released the results of “Phase 1A” of that study, which drew data from Department of Defense electronic medical records from 2001-2021, capturing those who were diagnosed with cancer through the Military Health System (MHS), including through the Tricare health insurance program.

For “Phase 1B,” released Oct. 31, the study expanded to include data from Department of Veteran Affairs electronic medical records and both the Department of Defense and Department of Veteran Affairs’ cancer registries, going back as far as 1976 in some cases, said a USAFSAM official.

More data will be included in the future by pooling data from state cancer registries.

“Phase 1 Bravo included considerably more data, capturing nearly 11 times more cancer cases compared to Phase 1 Alpha … The study team anticipates finding two to three times more cancers in Phase 2 using the virtual pulled registry,” the official said. “And no definitive conclusion should be drawn until Phase 2 is complete and all data sources have been incorporated.”

Officials also noted one major change they made between Phase 1A and Phase 1B.

“One significant adjustment required individuals to serve for a minimum of one year in the career field,” the official said. “Standard occupational cancer studies generally require a minimum of one-year duration of employment to be included in the analysis.”

This excluded some 205,000 previously included individuals, including 19,000 from missile-related career fields.

After adjusting for demographics and using slightly different metrics for comparing the missile community to the rest of the Air Force than it did with the general population, the results “suggest that there is no statistically significant difference in the incidence of most types of cancers” compared to the rest of the Air Force. Furthermore, compared to the general population, “almost all the standardized incidence ratios were less than 1.0, suggesting that the missile community had lower relative risk for developing these types of cancers.”

Yet officials were quick to caution that their findings were not final.

“The release of the preliminary information is just an attempt to be transparent, not definitive in the discovery journey yet,” said Col. Greg Coleman, AFGSC surgeon general. “We still have another 50 percent of the data to go through. So the data is instructive. But I just want to caution folks, don’t draw definitive conflict conclusions from the data yet, until the report is done and all the data analysis is done.”

AFGSC boss Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere also sought to preempt concerns that the study was sweeping the missile community’s concerns aside, as previous studies in 2001 and 2005 did.

“I sense in the community writ large that there is some skepticism based on the results of the 2001 and 2005 reports. I share, and I’ve been very vocal about my unsatisfaction with those two reports,” Bussiere said. “But this study, this effort, and this energy is significantly more focused and engaged than those two times.”

DOD Investing in Tech for Base Defense and Drone Swarms

Oct. 31, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon’s science and technology office is investing to develop new solutions for defending far-flung bases, controlling satellites in space, and enabling autonomous drones to collaborate, said Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mission Capabilities Thomas Browning.

Browning’s office oversees the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER), launched in 2021 to tackle “joint problems, those areas that fall into the gaps,” he said at the Hudson Institute. The program funds prototyping and experiments for technologies that could later be transferred to the services, where they would become programs of record.

RDER was created to answer needs identified by the Combatant Commands that couldn’t be answered with existing solutions. Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, speaking not long after the program started said it was, for “the first time, fulfilling a COCOM’s capability shortfall at the joint level.”

Most RDRER projects are classified, but Browning did say the projects operated in two-year “classes,” with a focus on specific missions or challenges. The first “class” focused on long-range fires for the Pacific. Browning said RDER took on 23 projects, but did not offer further details except to say four of the 23 successfully transitioned to the services and will become programs of record. Another dozen or so could still move forward, he said.

“Of 23, probably six-ish are not going to transition right away—that’s amazing math,” he said. But the Senate Appropriations Committee is less sanguine about RDER’s success. Its version of the 2025 defense spending bill, released in August, criticized RDER, saying it “could be better positioned” and failed to transition enough programs in 2023. That measure would cut funding.

Browing professes confidence howerver, explaining that the program will take an “enduring look at the INDOPACOM fight” in 2025, empasizing disrupting adversary kill chains and assuring U.S. combat effectiveness. In 2024, the program focused on “underserved” categories, including contested logistics and base defense.

“We got some amazing inputs,” Browning said. “We had inputs from the J4 where quite often logistics aren’t even allowed at the table. And so we got a nice list of very logistics-focused activities, a nice list of forward base defense activities, and we’re executing the prototyping on those right now.”

Both are important to the Air Force. Air Mobility Command has spent months working on how to surge forces to the Pacific in the event of a conflict with China and concerns about base defense span the gamut, from combat commanders to mobility chiefs.

The Air Force expects to disperse units to remote airfields, highlighting some of the issues RDER is trying to address: Base defense is an Army mission and the Air Force has been working with the Army for months to make that work. Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin, asked at the recent Military Reporters and Editors conference if the Air Force would be willing to share costs with the Army for air defense assets, demurred, as the primary mission for base air defense falls to the Army.

Looking ahead to 2026, leaders just recently selected the two areas it will focus on: space control and support for the terrestrial fight, and autonomous collaboration.

“How am I leveraging space to help that joint fight fully evolve” as low Earth becomes crowded with thousands of satellites, Browning said. “And then the second one … was this idea, if we’re going to put a whole bunch of unmanned vehicles out there in the forward edge of the fight, how are they not killing each other? How are they talking to each other? How are they synchronizing?”

While the first of these projects will inevitably involve the Space Force, the matter of coordinating drones is of intense interest to the Air Force, which is developing Collaborative Combat Aircraft that can team with manned platforms. RDER, however, will focus on a missing capability in the U.S. arsenal, drones that work together “independent of human interaction.” Sometimes called drone swarms, these closely coordinated aircraft could be highly effective at shutting down airports or creating hazards to disrupt base operations.

Lockheed Ups Pace of F-35 Deliveries to New High to Start Clearing Backlog

Oct. 31, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin is making good on predictions that it can deliver F-35 fighter jets at a rate of 20 per month, helping clear a backlog created by a yearlong hold on deliveries that was lifted in mid-July.

The contractor has also increased its estimate for how many F-35s it will deliver in calendar 2024.

A Lockheed spokesperson said that at the end of June——before the delivery hold was lifted—the company had delivered 990 F-35s. By the end of September, that number had risen to 1,040. Now, it is above 1,060.

“We have delivered 60+ jets in three and a half months,” the spokesperson said. She added that while the original delivery estimate for calendar 2024 was 75-110 of the fighters, Lockheed is revising that figure upward to 90-110, “based on deliveries so far” this year. That would indicate deliveries of between 15 and 23 more jets per month by Dec. 31.

Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office reported the Defense Contract Management Agency believed Lockheed could theoretically reach 20 deliveries per month, even though it had never before exceeded 13. Lockheed declined to provide detailed specifics.

The government stopped accepting F-35s in summer 2023 because they were being built with Tech Refresh 3 hardware, but the associated TR-3 software was still being tested. Lockheed continued to build new F-35s, but the jets went directly into storage, awaiting the conclusion of TR-3 testing. TR-3 is the hardware and software package which undergirds the Block 4 upgrade of the F-35, permitting new electronic warfare, communications, navigation, and weapons systems to be used.

In June, the Joint Program Office lifted the hold on deliveries, saying Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Michal Schmidt was satisfied that a truncated version of TR-3 software was sufficiently stable and safe for flight. It was also necessary that deliveries resume to avoid significant disruption of units awaiting the new aircraft, both in the U.S. and overseas.

Lockheed Aeronautics president Greg Ulmer told Air & Space Forces Magazine in September that the priorities of deliveries have been adjusted to accommodate special needs of various users. Australia, for example, needed its new aircraft first to achieve full operational capability, and received priority for deliveries. Other users offered no complaints, he said.

The GAO estimated it would take Lockheed at least a year to clear the backlogged jets—estimated to have been just over 100 airplanes—because Lockheed continues to build new F-35s and is delivering them alongside the stored ones. It was decided to do it that way to disrupt the production and delivery process as little as possible, Ulmer said.

Each stored airplane gets four checks—two company, two government—before being delivered, and each received two of those checks before being put into storage, he explained. The withheld airplanes received power-ons and active care during storage and were not simply mothballed, Ulmer said. This was done to expedite the delivery process once the JPO gave the green light.

Ulmer expressed confidence that the backlogged airplanes will all be delivered sometime in 2025, pegging the process as taking 12-18 months. He said he expects the F-35 delivery tally in 2025 to be “156-plus” aircraft. There are now 19 countries either operating the F-35 or signed on to buy the fighter. There’s been no letup in production because demand remains strong, he said.

The 1,000th F-35 was delivered with little fanfare to the 185th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard at Truax Field, Wisc., in July.

US Conducts Airstrikes Against ISIS in Syria as Militants Attempt Comeback

Oct. 30, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. conducted a series of airstrikes against Islamic State camps in Syria on Oct. 28, as the Pentagon continues its efforts to thwart the militant group from making a comeback.

The latest wave of airstrikes, which targeted multiple senior Islamic State leaders, was announced in a Oct. 30 statement by the U.S. Central Command.

The command said that several camps were targeted in the “Syria desert,” an apparent reference to the Badiya desert in central and southern Syria, and that as many as 35 members of the group were killed. There were no indications of civilian casualties, CENTCOM added.

“The airstrikes will disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against civilians, as well as U.S., allies, and partners throughout the region and beyond,” the command said in its Oct. 30 statement. “CENTCOM, alongside allies and partners in the region, will continue to aggressively degrade ISIS operational capabilities to ensure its enduring defeat.”

The U.S. conducted similar airstrikes on Oct. 11 and Sept. 26 in Syria and has also conducted multiple raids with Iraqi forces in recent weeks.

The Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate was defeated in 2019 by the U.S. and its regional allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces. The U.S. military has been working with the SDF and Iraqi forces ever since to try to preclude the group from regaining strength in Syria and in Iraq.

The group’s operations in Syria remain a major concern, especially since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies have been more focused on suppressing opponents of the Syrian regime than battling the militant group in the Badiya desert, U.S. officials say.

“There’s a reason that we’re not talking about moving capability out of Syria,” a senior defense official said earlier this month. “It’s really ISIS in Syria that is the kind of the core area where ISIS still has combat power, and a lot of the leadership continues to persist. … What you’ve seen out of this administration is a lot of continuity on keeping capability in Syria even after [Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023], because we do see the ISIS threat is being something that warrants that.”

The U.S.-led coalition that has been helping Iraqi forces fight ISIS is being phased out by September 2025. Iraq’s prime minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani is under political pressure domestically to wind down the presence of American and other Western forces.

But the U.S. hopes to transition to a “bilateral security partnership” after that point, which Pentagon officials have yet to define in detail. The agreement with Iraq will also enable the U.S. to sustain its presence in neighboring Syria by providing logistical support from northern Iraq until at least September 2026.

The U.S. currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and around 900 in Syria. U.S. officials have not provided details on how the end of Operation Inherent Resolve, as the coalition’s counter-ISIS mission is dubbed, will affect American troop levels. But they have acknowledged the U.S. will likely have fewer troops in Iraq.