Hegseth Orders 20% Cut in 4-Star Generals and Admirals, Seeks Overhaul of Commands

Hegseth Orders 20% Cut in 4-Star Generals and Admirals, Seeks Overhaul of Commands

May 5, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is directing the Pentagon to slash the number of senior generals and admirals, he announced May 5—at least 20 percent of four-star positions would be eliminated under the move. Hegseth also said he is directing a sweeping review of U.S. military commands and staffs, signaling a likely consolidation.

“[W]e must cultivate exceptional senior leaders who drive innovation and operational excellence, unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness,” Hegseth wrote in a memo. “A critical step in this process is removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions.”

Across the services, there are 27 four-star positions authorized by law, on top of joint positions like Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief and Vice Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and the heads of the military’s 11 combatant commands, for a total of more than 40 four-stars.

Hegseth did not say how the reductions would be apportioned among the services or how long it would take to carry out the cuts. He officially announced the movie in a video posted to social media.

Some positions with Air Force generals are sure to remain untouched—the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, is an Airman, as is the current Chief of the National Guard Bureau, Gen. Steven S. Nordhaus.

Outside of joint jobs, the Air Force can have nine four-star officers, but currently has just seven. The Space Force has just two such officers.

The Space Force looks likely to escape cuts at the four-star level—by law, the Chief of Space Operations and Vice Chief of Space Operations must be four-star officers. The service also has a third four-star in Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, head of the joint U.S. Space Command.

Hegseth said in a video released by the Department of Defense that he was dubbing the policy “less generals, more GIs.” He suggested in his video announcement that many of the reductions would come from a consolidation of combatant commands, and the memo says there will be a “realignment of the Unified Command Plan,” which outlines the organization of those commands. Ultimately, he wants to decrease the number of generals and admirals at all levels—one star and above—by 10 percent.

Hegseth’s memo also directs the Pentagon to cut the number of general officers in the National Guard by a minimum of 20 percent.

“Now this is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers,” Hegseth said. “ … This has been a deliberative process, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff with one goal: maximizing strategic readiness and operational effectiveness by making prudent reductions in the general and flag officer ranks.”

Hegseth said the cuts would take place in two stages. “Phase one, we’re looking at our current service structure, and in phase two, it’s a strategic review of the Unified Command Plan,” he said.

Under that plan, the services would need to trim positions in their own organizations first, before DOD reevaluates combat command positions. The Army has already suggested merging the heads of the Army Futures Command and the Army Training and Doctrine Command, and changes to other services could follow a similar path.

“We’re going to shift resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters,” Hegseth said.

At the Pentagon, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin and a Vice Chief lead the service, though that position is currently vacant following the firing of Gen. James C. Slife.

The Air Force has multiple four-star officers outside the Pentagon, including the commanders of:

  • Pacific Air Forces
  • U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa
  • Air Combat Command
  • Air Mobility Command
  • Air Force Materiel Command
  • Air Force Global Strike Command

The Space Force offers fewer places to cut. Service leaders have been clear that they view themselves as having an under-ranked service compared to other branches. Most Space Force geographic component commanders are colonels—in the Air Force, those positions are held by three- or four-star generals.

Hegseth has reportedly considered combining or removing some combatant commands, such as possibly eliminating an independent U.S. Africa Command and combining U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command, though the Pentagon has not confirmed which commands could be on the chopping block. Associated jobs on the Joint Staff could get cut with a consolidation of combatant commands. Some combatant commanders are due to retire soon, including the leaders of U.S. Central Command and U.S. European Command, and it is possible positions could be unfilled for a period.

Some positions typically only go to one service. For example, Air Force generals typically lead U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Transportation Command, and U.S. Cyber Command.

“This is going to be, we think, the most comprehensive review since the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1983,” Hegseth said. “That was a generational change in combatant command structures, planning, training, geographic areas of responsibility, mission, and operational responsibilities,” Hegseth said.

That move, however, was an act of Congress, not an edict from a Defense Secretary. It remains unclear how Congress will respond to Hegseth’s announcement, but some were quick to question the order.

“I have always advocated for efficiency at the Department of Defense, but tough personnel decisions should be based on facts and analysis, not arbitrary percentages,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement. “Eliminating the positions of many of our most skilled and experienced officers without sound justification would not create ‘efficiency’ in the military—it could cripple it.”

Reed said he was “skeptical of the rationale” and wants Hegseth to explain his thinking to lawmakers.

DOD Shows It Can Reuse Hypersonic Testbed, Setting Up Faster Testing

DOD Shows It Can Reuse Hypersonic Testbed, Setting Up Faster Testing

May 5, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The Talon-A2 uncrewed hypersonic test vehicle made a second flight just three months after its first, demonstrating reusability and paving the way for a faster pace of hypersonic testing, the Pentagon announced May 5.

The boost-glide vehicle, built by Stratolaunch, and lifted to launch altitude by the Stratolaunch Roc six-engined, double-fuselage carrier aircraft, flew on an undisclosed day in March, the Pentagon said in a release. After flying over the Pacific Ocean and achieving hypersonic speeds—defined as in excess of Mach 5—the vehicle landed on a runway at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. The same vehicle flew a similar profile in December 2024. In recent years, uncrewed hypersonic test vehicles craft have splashed down into the ocean after exhausting their fuel.

Stratolaunch is providing hypersonic test vehicles and services to Leidos, the prime contractor for the effort.

The flight was part of the Multi-service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed program, or MACH-TB, being conducted by the Defense Department’s Test Resource Management Center.

“This test campaign marks the nation’s first return to reusable hypersonic flight testing since the manned X-15 program ended in 1968,” the Pentagon release stated. The MACH-TB effort “accelerates delivery of advanced hypersonic capabilities to the warfighter by providing DOD, other Federal agencies, industry, and academia the capability to affordably and rapidly conduct hypersonic experiments and test hypersonic system components.”

Stratolaunch’s Talon-A2 release and engine ignition for its first hypersonic flight. Photo courtesy of Stratolaunch

The program seeks to provide a high tempo of hypersonic flights at low cost, in order to test components such as materials, communications, propulsion, and other elements of hypersonic craft. It’s intended to facilitate the transition from ground testing to full-scale flight tests and uses a modular approach.

Stratolaunch said the vehicle “surpassed Mach 5 during its trajectory for the second time, exceeding the previous speed record set with the December flight.”   

TRMC director George Rumford said in a statement that “demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB. Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”  The Pentagon did not say when it plans to fly the vehicle again.

“The success of this launch marks an important milestone for our hypersonic testing services,” said Larry Barisciano, Leidos’ aerospace systems lead.

“The program’s goal is to consistently and rapidly test various payloads to help the government assess technical readiness levels of advanced hypersonic capabilities. This launch serves as a testament to the speed in which Leidos could pull the program together, highlighting the agility Leidos provides for customers.”

Stratolaunch president and CEO Zachary Krevor said that “with the data collected from this second flight, we are able to apply lessons learned to enhance the strength and performance of the Talon-A vehicles. While the team needs to complete its data review of flight two, the first flight review confirmed the robustness of the Talon A design while demonstrating the ability to meet the full range of performance capabilities desired by our customers.”

Mark Lewis, president and CEO of the Purdue Applied Research Institute, advisor to Stratolaunch, and former deputy undersecretary of for research and engineering, hailed the importance of reusability in reducing the cost of testing.

“Because it’s a winged cruiser/glider, Talon also flies an envelope that’s more useful for categories of hypersonic vehicles versus sounding rockets,” Lewis said. Being able to recover a hypersonic vehicle is “extremely powerful,” he added.

In previous hypersonic programs, “we had flight tests with results that we’re still uncertain about. If we could have looked at the articles after flight, it would have been far more revealing. And of course, the ability to re-fly something is also powerful.” 

Leidos was awarded the MACH-TB contract by Naval Systems Warfare Center Crane on behalf of TRMC, the Pentagon said. Kratos will perform systems engineering, integration, and testing on MACH-TB 2.0, under a January contract valued at $1.45 billion.

The TRMC is a Pentagon Field Activity under the undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering.  

Stratolaunch’s Talon-A2 first autonomous landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Photo courtesy of Stratolaunch
Air Force, Space Force Brace For Wave of Civilian Staff Reductions

Air Force, Space Force Brace For Wave of Civilian Staff Reductions

May 5, 2025 | By David Roza

The personnel chiefs for the Air Force and Space Force told lawmakers that plans to lay off thousands of civilian employees could present challenges to recruitment efforts and perhaps even operations, particularly for the Space Force.

“I will tell you, because we rely heavily upon the Air Force for support, and that the preponderance of our Guardians, military and civilian, are operationally-focused, this is going to be a challenge for us,” Katharine Kelley, deputy chief of space operations for human capital, told the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee in a hearing April 30.

Kelley’s comments came about two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a plan to reduce the Defense Department’s civilian workforce by 5 to 8 percent, part of a greater effort by President Donald Trump to reform the federal workforce. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), an Air Force veteran and ranking member of the subcommittee, said she worried such reductions mean that “we’re necessarily asking more of those who are in uniform or are left behind.”

Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, said she expects to lose about 12,000 Air Force civilians, roughly six percent of the department’s 186,000 civilian employees. Meanwhile, Kelley estimated that civilians make up about a third of the Space Force’s 17,000 members. She expects to lose about 10 percent of those civilians, which translates to about 570 people. 

“The impact of losing civilians is exponentially hard on the Space Force because of the outsized impact of the total population,” she said. “We have to look very carefully about how to mitigate that 10 percent and how to be very, very intentional about making sure that that does not have a direct mission impact.”

Kelley’s concerns echoed those shared by top Space Force officials at the AFA Warfare Symposium in March. Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, the head of Space Systems Command, said at the time that a “considerable number” of civilian employees at SSC had taken the deferred resignation program (DRP) offered by the new administration.

It’s too soon to tell how the reductions will break down by pay grade or job specialty, an Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Batches of workers have requested DRP and voluntary early retirement options, but the Air Force is still working out how many of those might fall under policy exemptions.

Until then, the Air Force “expects near-term civilian employee reductions to affect all mission areas to some degree, while limiting reductions that directly support warfighter readiness and lethality,” the spokesperson said.

Probationary employees, meaning workers hired within a year or so ago and thus with fewer protections than their longer-serving colleagues, “will make up only a very small portion of the overall reductions,” the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, the Space Force reductions “have been proportionately distributed across the workforce based on both skill and tenure of civilian Guardians.” 

Miller said she hopes all the resignations will be voluntary rather than mandatory through a reduction-in-force pathway, but she did say the reductions could chill recruiting, as candidates may feel “uncertainty about … whether or not you’ll be able to maintain that position.”

“As we continue down this road for the next several years, we just have to watch the second and third order impacts of ‘how is that going to impact recruiting?’” she said.

Miller’s fellow service personnel chiefs also expressed uncertainty about the reductions. Army Lt. Gen. Brian Eifler expects to lose about 16,000 employees, “which is significant,” but he said the Army is trying to make sure the departures do not impact the mission.

Marine Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte said about 1,600 civilians took the DRP offer. Navy Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman Jr. did not have an estimate, but he spoke to the importance of Navy civilians.

“I can’t do my job without my three-star civilian equivalent deputy,” he said. “She did not take the DRP, good for me, but I am very concerned about my force development pipeline, how this will affect the schoolhouses and how it’ll affect our pay systems going forward depending on how that shakes out.”

Both the Air Force and Space Force are also complying with a military-wide civilian hiring freeze for all but mission-essential roles. The freeze has proven dirsuptive even for areas where exemptions were granted, such as child care, because delays have an outsized impact in areas where hiring was precarious even before the temporary pause took effect.

At the hearing, Miller said several civilians who trained child care providers took the first round of DRP, which, alongside other changes, has forced the Air Force to shift some of its workers and resources. That means the service may have to reduce the hours for some of its programs during the summer, a popular time for youth and child care activities. 

Meeting the Software Challenge: Acquisition Reform Brings Its Own Complications

Meeting the Software Challenge: Acquisition Reform Brings Its Own Complications

May 5, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

Editor’s Note: This is the final episode in a three-part series exploring the opportunities and challenges facing the Trump administration’s changes to how the Pentagon buys software. Part 1 is available here, and Part 2 is available here.

The new rules for buying software made mandatory by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s March 6 memo are designed to strip away constraints on how the DOD and the military services contract with private sector companies, so that they can buy, integrate, and deploy innovative capabilities more quickly.

But critics warn that the Software Acquisition Pathway, by clearing the way for faster, more agile acquisition, also removes safeguards imposed to prevent waste and abuse. In smoothing the path for a new generation of innovative software companies to contract with DOD and “disrupt” the defense industrial base, these critics argue, DOD risks creating a new generation of complacent incumbents.

“The reason why this [software acquisition reform] push is so well-championed by private industry is because it’s a vehicle to move money quickly with very few strings attached,” one recently retired Air Force technology and acquisition leader told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We have to be careful if we kill off those old kings, that we don’t just replace them with new kings.” 

The retired officer, whose 20-year career included a stint as senior leadership at an Air Force technology accelerator, was granted anonymity because they fear retribution against themselves and their current employer for criticizing an administration policy initiative. 

The software pathway, according to a guide produced by the Defense Acquisition University, frees software buyers from a series of constraints.

Normally, programs with an R&D budget of over $300 million or a total budget of over $1.8 billion are considered Major Defense Acquisition Programs. MDAPs are divided into phases and have to meet certain milestones and report them to Congress before they can move to the next phase. 

Under the pathway, software programs are exempt from the MDAP process, according to the guide.

In return, pathway programs have to provide a minimum viable product—some capability to users in the field—within one year, a breakneck pace for military acquisition. They also have to commit to:

  • Updates once per year or more.
  • Using modern software practices like agile and DevSecOps.
  • Automating their testing and compliance. 

The pathway also frees software programs from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS), a process designed to vet requirements across the joint force. 

“Instead of spending years writing detailed requirements and going through a rigid one-size-fits-all process,” a defense official told reporters at a background briefing on the Hegseth memo, “we can tap into the best tech available right now, prototype it fast and get it to the field quickly if it works.”

Another hailed the use of commercial solutions openings in the Replicator program, the Defense Innovation Unit-led effort to build cheap drones, saying they got three vendors on contract in just 110 days from issuing the original “problem statement” to industry.

“That is much faster than the traditional ways of putting out a solicitation and making those awards,” the official said.

The Relevance of Speed

Yet speed is a “dangerous” metric for software acquisition for a number of reasons, said the retired Air Force technology and acquisition leader. 

“Speed is the metric where Silicon Valley measures its success: How fast can we get to market right? In the military it’s different. You can’t go out there with something that’s untested, where you think it’s going to work,” they said.

Moreover, speed as a metric “doesn’t tell you if anyone is actually using this stuff.” More useful metrics, they suggested, would be rates of user adoption and feedback about the user experience.

Ultimately, in the military context, they said, “the metric should be, does it work under fire? Does it have resilience under uncertainty? And if it does, then that’s a good candidate.”

Speed is also a potentially troublesome metric because it lessens focus on oversight, the retired acquisition leader said.

“Moving money and getting on contracts, I won’t lie about that: that’s hard to do, and getting on contract fast is important,” they acknowledged, adding that there are good people working hard in organizations like the Defense Innovation Unit.

But these faster mechanisms—often grouped under the term Other Transaction Authorities, or OTAs—can now be used for full-scale production contracts, not just for developing prototypes. “Hundreds of millions of dollars are going out that door,” the retired official said. 

Maj. Gen. Luke C. G. Cropsey, who heads the Air Force Program Executive Office (PEO) for Command, Control, Communications, and Battle Management (C3BM), has said the service is already using the new authorities foot-stomped by the Hegseth March 6 memo—and he pushed back against the idea that the software pathway stripped away oversight.

“There’s still very much accountability associated with the expenditure of funds,” he said. “The contractor is accountable for delivering on the products.”

A senior defense official told reporters at a background briefing on the Hegseth memo that the ability to move from a prototype OTA contract to a production OTA contract is a “key enabler” for software acquisition, because it means an established weapons program can piggyback a prototype OTA by an innovation lab like DIU and issue a production contract for the technology that prototype has proven out.

“So, that’s a key element of these OTs is that you can prototype an OT and then a completely different organization can drop a production OT on top of that prototype OT,” the official said.

But that flexibility, combined with the low barriers to entry for a DOD marketplace like Tradewinds, the AI contracting clearinghouse run by the office of the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO), could be dangerous, the retired acquisition specialist said.

The net effect, they said, is that companies with no history or demonstrated ability of delivering anything could get put on multimillion dollar, no-compete contracts at the complete discretion of the contracting officer on the basis of “a five-minute pitch video,” which is all it takes to enter the Tradewinds marketplace.

Defense officials told reporters at the background briefing on the Hegseth memo that they’re looking to combat that issue by requiring all OTAs and CSOs over $100 million to be approved by the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. 

‘Trilingual’ Expertise 

Other critics are also concerned that the DOD workforce doesn’t have the skills they need to use the Software pathway.

Defense officials on the background briefing said they are moving to address the need for new skills from program managers and procurement officials.

One official said DIU, in partnership with the Defense Acquisition University, is running a training scheme called the Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program (ICAP).  “We’re competitively select top performing contracting officers from across the Department of Defense to come and work with us at DIU and execute DIU service-aligned prototype projects. At the same time, they’re taking DAU courses, so they’re learning the textbook rules [and] regulations on Other Transaction Authority” contracts and other flexible acquisition tools, the official said.

Getting contracting officers into innovative programs is essential to spreading the knowledge of how to buy software better, said Cropsey: “You’ve got to build a pipeline that allows you to bring junior folks into these programs and actually get exposure earlier in their career to how to actually use and implement some of these [new acquisition] mechanisms,” he said.

But just training acquisition professionals to use new tools doesn’t necessarily equip them to buy software, explained Tate Nurkin, an Atlantic Council senior fellow and co-author of the recent report from its Commission on Software-Defined Warfare. 

“We need people who are trilingual,” he told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the report launch. They need to understand and know how to use the new acquisition tools, but they also have to understand the needs of warfighters in the field. Above all, he said, “they need to speak software” to know which questions to ask of contract engineers writing the actual code, Nurkin said.

The challenge, said Dopkeen, is to develop “software literate” acquisition professionals. “You have to develop software people the same way you develop acquisition professionals. You have to take people and you need to put them in good software environments, practicing coding and learning how it done.”

“There isn’t really any substitute for working on a major software project, and preferably more than one, even in a relatively junior capacity” for learning which questions to ask as the manager of such a project, Dopkeen said.

But more important than any training was the issue of cultural change, she said. 

“Data and software are kind of like the backroom at the Defense Department,” she said. “Everyone wants to do things that go ‘boom’ and data and software is an afterthought.”

Trying to get software right in DOD, Dopkeen said, “you always feel like you’re almost a virus that the Pentagon body is fighting against.”

To fix the problem requires overhauling the culture of the military services, she said, giving as an example the way pilots tend to get the top jobs in any Air force program. 

The litmus test, she explained, for predicting the success of the new F-47 fighter, will be “If it has a software person as the program manager and a plane person, a pilot, as their product manager.” 

Beyond Acquisition

Another big issue, Dopkeen said, is that acquisition is not the only problem with the way the military uses software. Indeed, she said, the way the DOD has traditionally treated software is “the opposite of what they should have been doing.”

In commercial enterprise like Google, she said, codebases are not just updated, they are constantly being rewritten, a process called refactoring. “With Google Calendar, for example, they will design that product and let the team work on it for a year and then they’ll tell them to go back and completely rewrite it, design it again with new code, knowing what they do now.”

At DOD, by contrast, the attitude is, “because it works and has been certified, this becomes Holy Code that can never be touched again. And then you build on that for a decade and you end up with spaghetti code that is just a huge mess. And you are left with a huge attack surface,” she said.

DOD Chief Software Officer Rob Vietmeyer recently called these legacy systems “a boat anchor,” a huge drag on the department’s innovation efforts.

And it’s not a problem that can be solved by just changing the way the military buys things, said the retired acquisition leader, because the root causes go way beyond the acquisition system. 

“There’s not really any off-the-shelf software running on DOD networks,” the retired official explained. “Unless you’re an external application, hosted somewhere else, all the software is modified” to meet security and other special requirements for DOD networks. “And that creates a lot of technical debt, because you’re maintaining two different code baselines: One for DOD and one for everyone else.”

In addition, although the pathway mandates the use of agile software development practices, in reality, there were many restrictions on the tools developers can use on military networks. 

“Operating on the military network is really where a lot of the blockers are. The restrictions, the approved tools that you can use, they suck…. That is the main driver on why they can’t push updates.”

They said the focus on acquisition is well-meaning but ultimately inadequate.  

”If you want to move fast, then let’s streamline the process of building software, let’s approve the tools that developers need on these networks. … This is a hard problem to solve, but if you really want to solve it, then you need to look in the right places,” they said.

Part 1 looked at how the Air Force is embracing the new Software Acquisition Pathway. Part 2 probed the origins of the Software Acquisition Pathway as part of an acquisition reform movement in DOD.

Air Force Eyes Less Class Time, More PT at Basic Training

Air Force Eyes Less Class Time, More PT at Basic Training

May 5, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

Air Force training officials are planning changes to Basic Military Training that could take trainees out of the classroom more often to better prepare them for the rigors of modern warfare.

Beginning in the fall, 2nd Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson plans to introduce a new curriculum for boot camp that will focus on training Airmen and Space Force Guardians in much smaller groups, while replacing some classroom instruction with a more hands-on learning approach.

Training officials are also looking at increasing daily physical fitness training and adding exercises designed to mimic combat tasks.

Davidson, who oversees BMT and follow-on technical training, is tailoring the effort to match both Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s directive to restore warrior ethos in the ranks, and the service’s new initiatives to prepare for competition with the likes of China and Russia.

“How do we make sure that Airmen show up with the warrior ethos and understand their role in a high-end fight, not just in a fight, but in a high-end fight. … For us, that starts at Basic Military Training to kind of create the mindset that we would then build throughout technical training, Davidson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Trainees assigned to flights 100-103 participate in Mask Confidence Training at the 319th Training Squadron, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland-Chapman Training Annex, Texas, Dec. 19, 2024. During week four of the Department of the Air Force Basic Military Training, trainees go through an eight-hour Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense Orientation Course.

Davidson said he began to review BMT in August to figure out if it is preparing trainees for the current threat environment and how it fits into new Air Force operational concepts like Agile Combat Employment and Combat Wings.

“Then the new SecDef’s guidance that came out on [warrior ethos] … just really put the fuel behind this as it continues to move ahead,” Davidson said.

Air Force officials have actually been talking about promoting a “warrior” mindset dating back to the mid-2000s, saying then it was to better prepare Airmen to operate in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Over the years, the concept of warrior ethos has been often misunderstood, said Davidson, who comes from a Combat Controller background.

“So people would think you were a warrior because of what you did–so, you know, do you carry a weapon and are you close to the enemy?” Davidson said. “But in actuality, that’s not what we’re trying to create with a warrior ethos. What we’re really trying to create is the understanding of why you do the things that you do. … It doesn’t matter what you do. It matters why you do it, and the reason that you do it is to defeat an adversary.

“So it’s about creating that mindset and changing this concept of, ‘well, I’m not the person pulling the trigger, so I’m not really a warrior,’ to ‘what is it that I do that’s going to contribute to our success’ as that basic guiding principle.”

The Air Force has already rolled out some changes to BMT for “great power competition,” the term officials use to describe a potential fight with China or Russia.

In late July, trainees were issued non-firing, inert M4 carbines to carry throughout BMT to improve weapons proficiency. Senior Air Force officials had intended to transition to actual firing M4s, but Davidson said such a change is likely not necessary since trainees have already shown improvement in their weapons handling skills.

“We are seeing more proficiency with the weapon; they are more comfortable with the weapon,” Davidson said. “Handling that weapon helps you visualize yourself more as a warrior in creating that ethos.”

Then in March, the Air Force extended the 36-hour field exercise at the end of BMT to 57 hours. Primary Agile Combat Employment Range, Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise, or PACER FORGE, is designed to simulate how Airmen would deploy in small teams and operate from remote or makeshift air bases to make it more difficult for adversaries to target them.

To expand PACER FORGE, training officials trimmed some BMT training activities such as drill and ceremonies practice and dormitory inspections, Davidson said. “We had to buy those hours,” he said. “We have not extended basic training, and right now, we do not have plans to extend basic training to buy the extra time.” 

The next step, Davidson said, will come with a restructured BMT that’s designed to ensure trainees embrace an “air-minded” focus on how they fit into the broader mission of delivering combat power from a small, remote air base or space base. 

“And this is what is unique about the Air Force, so the Soldiering is in the Army and in the Air Force, it’s about how do you generate that airfield, how do you generate aircraft? How do you get weapons on it and fuel in it, and how do you keep the runway going under attack? How do you defend the perimeter?” Davidson said.

To do that, the new BMT will focus on teaching trainees to operate in “12-15 person teams” instead of “flights” that average about 50 trainees, Davidson said, adding that he also intends to get trainees out of the classroom environment and immerse them into more scenario-based training.

“Some of the courses that we do today are very classroom-based; we’re going to go to a learner-centric model, so much more … experience as a small team experiential learning,” Davidson said. “So learning … the foundational competencies of what it means to be an Airman in a different way, meaning, use them in the exercise-based, scenario-type training, as opposed to more classroom.”

Training officials are also looking at ways to increase physical fitness training in BMT, said Chief Master Sgt. Whitfield Jack, the senior noncommissioned officer for the 737th Training Group.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna takes part in the Airmen and Guardian run at Joint Base San Antonio, Tx., Feb 26, 2025. The event was part of a basic military training graduation ceremony for Airmen and Guardians. U.S. Air Force photo by Andy Morataya

“So as we speak, we’ve got a human performance team and some physicians that are actually looking over our PT program … because we’re trying to get back to physicality, Jack said.

Currently, trainees do an hour of fitness training per day, but training officials are discussing going to 90 minutes, “trying to do more pull and push foundational PT versus just a standard pass the PT test” training.

This is all in the discussion phase, Jack said, explaining that there are no plans to change the current Air Force PT test in BMT.

“Basically, we’re trying to get our Airmen and Guardians prepared for, if they’re out in a deployed environment, ’Can you pull something? Can you push? Can you put something over your head? Can you bend down and squat and pick something up?’ … more litter carries and pulling rope and things like that,” Jack said.

Lt. Col. Robert Chance, commander of 343rd Training Squadron that oversees security forces technical training, said ensuring trainees are more physically fit will strengthen their warrior mindset.

“Realistically, when times get tough, the more physically fit and resilient these folks are, the more mental capacity that they’re going to have,” he said. “And so that that’s where we’re really at is just really focusing on making sure that the training we’re doing is hard and realistic, so that when the first time these young folks face adversity and are challenged is not when it counts.”

The goal of all of these possible changes to BMT is to create a mindset in trainees that is adversary-focused rather than specialty-focused, Davidson said.

“So the very first step of why it is so important for us to build this warfighting approach or warrior ethos in our Airmen is that they can’t show up on base and think that they’re a fuels guy or a personnelist, right?” Davidson said. “They got to show up on base and figure out, all right, I have a role in this that’s broader, and it’s focused on the adversary.”

New CCA Unit at Beale Won’t Be ‘Schoolhouse’ to Teach Pilots to Fly with Drones

New CCA Unit at Beale Won’t Be ‘Schoolhouse’ to Teach Pilots to Fly with Drones

May 3, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force announced this week it is creating a new kind of organization—called an Aircraft Readiness Unit—to provide Collaborative Combat Aircraft for combat operations. Yet that announcement is just one of the “early steps” of operationalizing the semi-autonomous drones, with many more to come, a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The ARU is not planned to be a schoolhouse where fighter pilots can come to learn how to manage the drones, which will to fly alongside manned platform and be controlled by them. The unit’s manning will also be “an order of magnitude” less than traditional remotely-piloted aircraft squadrons, the spokesperson said.

Beale Air Force Base, Calif., is the “preferred location” for the ARU, meant to “provide combat aircraft ready to deploy worldwide at a moment’s notice.” In its announcement, the Air Force noted that because CCAs are not crewed, they will “not have to fly a significant number of daily sorties to maintain readiness. They will be maintained in a fly-ready status and flown minimally,” so the number of Airmen needed to support the fleet “will be substantially lower” than for other weapon systems.

Asked if the unit will be flying CCAs to forward locations where they’re needed or whether they’ll be transported in crates for reassembly and operations, an Air Force spokesperson said “we are still developing the tactics, techniques, and procedures for employing CCA. Due to operational security, specifics on this will likely not be releasable in the future.”

The spokesperson added that the unit “is not a schoolhouse,” but will simply provide CCAs for operational use. The CCA is “a new concept for an airborne weapons systems, and CCA units will be different from traditional flying squadrons. We expect to have more information in the future.”

Air Force and industry leaders have said experiments show fighter pilots can manage up to six CCAs with relative ease.

Anduril Industries YFQ-44A drone prepared for ground testing. Image courtesy of Anduril

There has been debate in recent years whether CCAs will be integrated with fighter units or have their own organizations, and the Air Force seems not to have resolved that debate yet. Asked if the establishment of the ARU means that the question has been settled, the spokesperson did not directly respond, saying the declaration of Beale as the preferred location for the ARU “is one of many early steps in the process to formalize the organizational structure of the CCA program.”

The Air Force declined to provide target dates for standing up the unit, how many aircraft will constitute initial operational capability, or when that will happen.

“Due to operational security, the specific timelines for standing up this unit are … not available at this time,” the spokesperson said. The CCA unit “will not follow the traditional model of more aircraft equals more personnel. CCA require fewer hours and sorties to maintain operational proficiency and are designed to simplify and reduce maintenance actions. The reduced personnel requirements are an order of magnitude lower than traditional fighter or RPA units.”

Given how early it is in the introduction of CCAs, “there is much to learn” about them, and the Department of the Air Force “has not yet determined the total fleet size,” the spokesperson said. “However, the DAF is committed to fielding an operational CCA capability before the end of the decade.”

The spokesperson also said it is still too early to say whether the ARU will have a formal association with a particular Active, Reserve, or Guard unit, though “we expect more information on this to become available in the future.”

Though the plan is for Beale to host the ARU, the Air Force’s reference to it as the “preferred” location means that environmental impact assessments and other processes must be completed before it can be confirmed as the new home of the CCA mission.

As part of its ARU announcement, the Air Force also disclosed that the two contenders for the CCA program, Anduril Industries YQF-44A and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems YQF-42A, have begun ground testing ahead of flights this summer. One of these two candidates for Increment 1 of the CCA program is expected to be selected for production after October. The service plans to produce at least 200 Increment 1 CCAs at a cost of $27-$30 million, with the first available for operations circa 2028-2030.

The Air Force also plans to choose final competitors to develop Increment 2 in 2026, but those aircraft are expected to be less sophisticated, and may be air-launched, as opposed to Increment 1 CCAs, which require a runway for takeoff and landing.

US Air Force Taps Boneyard Jets to Keep Ukraine’s F-16s Flying

US Air Force Taps Boneyard Jets to Keep Ukraine’s F-16s Flying

May 3, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley and Chris Gordon

The U.S. has approved a $310.5 million Foreign Military Sale to provide Ukraine with maintenance and training for its F-16 fighter jets, the State Department announced May 2. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force has been sending retired F-16s to Ukraine to be used for spare parts.

The two actions show that continued American support for Ukraine’s F-16 fleet is proceeding under the Trump administration. The U.S. has not transferred any active F-16s of its own to Ukraine, but the Air Force did train some Ukrainian pilots, has provided sustainment support, and helped Ukraine upgrade the jets’ electronic warfare systems.

The Air Force is supporting the European-donated F-16s by “providing disused and completely non-operational F-16s to Ukraine for parts,” a service spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

In a separate release, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said that the State Department had approved the $310.5 million deal to provide:

  • spare parts
  • modifications
  • upgrades
  • training for operations and maintenance
  • technical documents
  • repair support
  • ground handling equipment

The contractors on the deal include Valiant Integrated Services, a training and logistics firm; Top Aces Corporation, a red air contractor; Lockheed Martin, maker of the F-16; and Pratt and Whitney and L3Harris, F-16 engine-maker and subcontractor, respectively.

With Kyiv currently operating a small fleet of multirole jets in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion, any spare parts or sustainment help could prove critical. The U.S. has long been reluctant to send American-owned warplanes in any condition to Ukraine, though the Biden administration allowed European allies to build up Ukraine’s F-16 fleet.

The Air Force said the U.S. is still not providing functioning jets to Ukraine.

“These F-16s were retired from active U.S. use and are not flyable. Importantly, they lack critical components such as an engine or radar, and could not be reconstituted for operational use,” the Air Force spokesperson said.

It is unclear when the U.S. began sending the stripped-down F-16s to Ukraine and whether the Biden or Trump administration first green-lit the move. A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.

The Air Force declined to provide further details on delivery timelines or the scope of airframes being supplied. The aircraft have been stored at the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

Photos that began surfacing on social media last week show tightly wrapped F-16s without wings and tails being loaded at Tucson International Airport, less than 10 miles from the Air Force’s boneyard.

The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan is the world’s largest military aircraft storage facility. It houses and processes aircraft from all branches of the U.S. military, federal agencies such as NASA, and foreign allies. While most are beyond restoration, some go through extensive maintenance to return to flying condition, while others are dismantled. According to a spokesperson of the Arizona base, the facility currently stores “several hundred” F-16s across various variants. The F-16s being supplied to Ukraine appear to be older models of the jet.

The news was first reported by the War Zone.

After Washington greenlit the transfer of American-made fighters in 2023, four NATO allies committed to donating F-16s to Ukraine. Jets from the Netherlands and Denmark began arriving in Ukraine last year, with Kyiv set to receive dozens of F-16s in total from the two countries over the next few years.

Last month, the head of U.S. European Command stated that Ukrainian pilots are flying the fighters “every day,” having successfully intercepted a large number of cruise missile threats, and are delivering “a significant number of offensive attacks” with their F-16s. Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the dual-hatted commander who also acts as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, added that there are more F-16s prepared to be deployed, with additional pilots in the training pipeline.

In March, one Ukrainian Air Force pilot claimed in an interview that over 80 percent of the missiles fired by these jets successfully hit their targets, eliminating Russia’s Shahed drones and cruise missiles. According to the interview, the fighters also carry out counterair missions and conduct multiple ground attack operations each day over Russia and its occupied territories in Ukraine.

Ukraine has already lost at least two of its multirole fighters in the fight against Russia. In August, a jet was lost in a crash during a massive Russian missile and drone attack, killing one of the country’s first F-16-trained pilots. Then, in April, another Fighting Falcon was downed during a combat mission, resulting in the death of the pilot, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X.

Zelenskyy is expecting more F-16 deliveries from Norway and Belgium. In April, a Norwegian Ministry of Defense spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the transfer of F-16s from Norway to Ukraine “is going according to plan.” Norway had initially announced the shipment of six fighters starting last year. If their plans had gone as expected, Ukraine might already have some Norwegian F-16s by now, although the spokesperson declined to provide further details regarding the exact delivery status.

Belgium, which had initially promised its first batch of F-16 donations in 2024, has postponed the delivery of operational F-16s until next year due to the delayed roll-out of the stealthy F-35 fleet. However, the country has reaffirmed its commitment to being a supplier of F-16s, with plans to deliver two decommissioned F-16 jets for spare parts this year, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said.

While the U.S. has not provided any flyable F-16s so far, Washington supplied missiles for the fighter fleet and trained Kyiv’s pilots through the Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing.

The U.S. has armed the Ukrainian Air Force with AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. It has also delivered JDAM Extended Range guided bombs, with a range of roughly 50 miles, along with Small Diameter Bombs and HARM anti-radiation missiles. In addition, the previous Biden administration pledged to provide AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons last fall, a medium-range, precision-guided glide bomb capable of striking targets over 70 miles away, though it is unclear whether that delivery has been made.

RAF Unveils Its Own Plan for New Drones to Fly Alongside Fighters

RAF Unveils Its Own Plan for New Drones to Fly Alongside Fighters

May 2, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force has unveiled a new electronic warfare drone designed to fly with fighter jets into contested airspace, including alongside its fleet of F-35s. 

Called StormShroud, the prop-propelled aircraft will support RAF F-35B fifth-generation stealth fighters and fourth-generation Eurofighter Typhoons “by blinding enemy radars, which increases the survivability and operational effectiveness of our crewed aircraft,” the RAF said in a statement. 

That is not the only new system the British are working on. RAF says it plans to develop more drones to work with its warplanes, just as the U.S. Air Force is leaning heavily into its approach of teaming unmanned systems with crewed platforms.

Still, the aircraft unveiled recently differs in key ways from the USAF’s flagship Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, said Stacie Pettyjohn of the Center for a New American Security, who has been briefed on the RAF’s plans.

StormShroud is far less advanced than the jet-powered CCAs and is not designed to be directly controlled by fighters, but rather to fly a planned route.

The Royal Air Force’s StormShroud. Courtesy photo

The platform for StormShroud is the Tekever AR3, which the RAF said was selected because it has been proven in Ukraine. The prop-powered aircraft will carry an electronic warfare package made by Leonardo because StormShroud is designed to jam radars and disrupt enemy integrated air defense systems.

The first increment of CCAs, by contrast, are meant to carry extra weapons for manned fighters.

“[StormShroud] is intended to be used as a stand-in jammer or decoy that would be employed with F-35Bs or Typhoons operating inside of enemy air defenses,” said Pettyjohn, the director of CNAS’s Defense Program. “Thus, while StormShroud is intended to operate with fighters, it is not a loyal wingman, which differentiates it from the USAF’s CCA program.”

The first tranche of CCAs, Pettyjohn added, are much larger than StormShroud and are capable of advanced autonomy to operate in formations with F-35s. In contrast, this RAF drone is a more specialized and limited capability with more limited endurance, range, and intelligence, she added. 

The StormShround is a drone that provides “cheap, precise mass and that has been rapidly developed and fielded,” said Pettyjohn.

Specifically, the new system draws on lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine and will give U.K. “frontline military personnel the cutting-edge capability,” British Defense Secretary John Healey said.

The RAF, Pettyjohn noted, differentiates its drones by tiers—tier one aircraft are disposable after one use, and tier two drones are attritable, meaning they might be lost after a few missions. A tier three drone is survivable and could be used many times. A drone that functions as a long-range strike weapon may also be on the horizon.

StormShroud is a tier two system, and therefore less costly than a tier three variant that is survivable, which CCAs are generally considered to be. It is designed to be launched by ground forces that are trained to operate in small teams in high-threat environments, the RAF said. The drone will be operated by the RAF’s 216 Squadron.

Still, the StormShroud is not a cheap quadcopter or first-person view style drone that Russia, Ukraine, and increasingly the U.S. military plan to field.

The RAF has a plan for a fleet of drones of varying degrees of sophistication and price.

“This is a seminal moment for the RAF to maintain our advantage in air combat and national security,” Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the head of the RAF, said in a statement. “The RAF is committed to exploring cutting-edge technologies that can enhance its lethality and survivability in a more contested and dangerous world. Autonomous collaborative platforms will revolutionise how we conduct a range of missions, from intelligence gathering to strike and logistical support.”

Space Force Tells Vendors: We Want AI, but It Needs to Be Specific

Space Force Tells Vendors: We Want AI, but It Needs to Be Specific

May 2, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

There are many use cases for different kinds of artificial intelligence in the Space Force, but the service is moving cautiously towards adoption, hampered in part by a disconnect with vendors, officials said May 1. 

At the ACFEA Northern Virginia chapter’s Space Force IT Day in suburban Virginia, Lt. Col. Jose Almanzar had a blunt answer when asked how the unit he commands, the 19th Space Defense Squadron, is using AI.

“To make a long story short, we’re not,” he said.

However, he told the audience of defense industry contractors, “We do know how to spell AI, so that’s good.” 

Joking aside, Almanzar said his squadron is looking at using NIPRGPT, a generative AI model cleared to run on the military’s Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet), an unclassified global network run by DOD.  

NIPRGPT is an experimental chatbot developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, which Almanzar said had “helped tremendously in mission planning and reducing administrative actions and helping to standardize a lot of the appraisal writing and award writing and whatnot.” 

But the 19th, as one of the Space Force units responsible for tracking objects in space, has a big data problem, and it needs to use other kinds of AI to get after that, Almanzar said. 

“Where we need help is, we have a lot of data,” he said, explaining that the squadron receives about 1 million observations a day from the service’s Space Surveillance Network, comprised of over 20 different sensors, both in space and on the ground. That’s on top of a daily feed of commercial SDA data compiled by the service’s Joint Commercial Office, he said.  

Validating data from new private sector sensors for inclusion into the Space Force’s definitive data catalogue is very time-consuming, Almanzar said.  

“Having AI tools to help our analysts in [Space Operations Command] and [Space Systems Command] adjudicate the information that these new sensors bring on so we can validate [it] and use it in our gold standard catalog would be extremely helpful,” he said. 

Machine learning AI could also help with preparing ‘Conjunction On Launch’ Assessments (COLA), which the 19th provides to the FAA as part of the aviation regulator’s approval process for space launches in the United States. 

COLAs are designed to ensure that a launch won’t collide with an existing satellite, but they take “hours upon hours upon hours,” Almanzar said. Safety assessments for on-orbit maneuvers—to ensure satellites’ new locations are safe and their new orbits won’t cause collisions—are similarly time consuming.   

“If there’s ways that we can automate that and make it go faster,” he said, “how do we compress that timeline, especially in scenarios that we have had recently when a satellite in [Geostationary Earth Orbit, or] GEO blew up and generated a lot of debris? How do we get that data quickly and make sense of that?”

On top of all that, Almanzar pointed out, the Space Force had historical domain awareness data “going back to Sputnik,” which could be useful to train machine learning AI systems to spot anomalies in current orbital data.  

“Ideally, what I would like for us to do with it is predictive analysis,” he said: “Predictive AI on patterns of behavior, patterns of life [in the data], helping us with orbit determination.” 

Part of the issue with AI adoption, his fellow speakers on a panel discussing data and AI said, is a disconnect with vendors. 

“We absolutely have plans to leverage AI,” said Shannon Pallone, program executive officer for battle management and command, control, and communications at Space Systems Command. 

She said AI could bring immediate value in “helping [with] a lot of mundane administrative tasks. So, how can I start putting information that I had in the templates [for procurement documents]? How do I use it on the back end? How can I be auto generating documentation and … all the artifacts that I need to get an [Authority To Operate on DOD networks].” 

But getting vendors to focus on those issues isn’t easy, she said. 

“One of the biggest challenges I have is you all come in and you’re like, ‘Look at this cool AI stuff I’m doing!’ That does not solve any of my problems,” Pallone said.  

In many vendor pitches, she explained, it isn’t clear, “what is it that your company brings to the table? Is it a large language model? OK, anybody can do that. Is it the data you trained on top of it? That might be more interesting, but is that data relevant to what I’m doing? Or is it just data you picked because it was readily available?” 

Above all, she said vendors had to answer the question: “How does [your product] help me get after the problems I’m trying to solve? How does it get after more space-specific problems? And unless I can see that last piece, I’m struggling to find where the value is,” she said. 

The Space Force’s Space Data and Analytics Officer Chandra Donelson added that vendors needed to go back to basics: “The first question is: What problem are we trying to solve? … And I cannot tell you how many times people walk into my office and they’re like, ‘Hey! We have a solution. Now let’s go look for problems across the Space Force that we’re able to get after with it.’ That is the wrong thing.”  

She said starting with the problem meant you can look for a solution, even if it isn’t the latest buzzy concept. 

“Once you identify the problem, maybe artificial intelligence is a solution. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it is a specific type of artificial intelligence,” she suggested. 

She also urged vendors to focus on their core strengths, since that is their value proposition and what makes them an attractive partner for the Space Force. 

“In all aspects of our life,” she said, “choosing a partner is the most important decision you’re ever going to make. So when we choose our technology partners, those are the most important decisions that we have to make. So for our partners, I want you to also be realistic about what capability you can provide for the service. If you are not an AI company, do not try to become an AI company, just because that’s what’s selling right now. Do what you do very well, and let’s have some real, I would say, critical and crucial conversations about that.”  

Experts caution that building trust with operators is vital to the acceptance of AI tools, and Col. Ernest “Linc” Bonner, commander of the Space Force’s Futures Task Force, said the service needed to be careful as it moved towards adoption. 

“There needs to be a deliberate examination of both what the capability of the technology is at this time and how those things can be brought to bear, and what would be required for them to be brought to bear for the service, for our various missions,” he told an earlier session. 

“AI has a lot of potential, and I think it’s still unclear where that’s going to take us. There’s certainly potential in terms of things like mission planning and generation of courses of action to facilitate that type of decision making.” 

He said another use case was autonomous defense systems for the large-scale, low-Earth orbit constellations, “and I’m sure there are others that I haven’t even scratched the surface of.”