Air Force Picks First Enlisted RQ-4 Class

The Air Force has picked the first 10 enlisted airmen to begin training to fly the RQ-4 Global Hawk, the service announced. The airmen—the first enlisted airmen to fly since World War II—will begin training in October and is expected...

The Real Cyber Threat

The cyber risk to the Air Force’s non-network systems is “very real and concerning,” Lt. Gen. Bill Bender, the service’s chief information officer, told reporters Thursday. “We’re very much concerned with legacy systems that a determined adversary certainly could hack...

The Warsaw Agenda

Warsaw, Poland NATO leaders at this week’s summit are taking up a large raft of pressing issues facing the alliance. To deal with a resurgent and threatening Russia, NATO will increase its forward-deployed forces, including four new battalions that will...

Good Cyber Hygiene

Bad cyber hygiene amounts to about 80 percent of the cyber threat to the Air Force, Lt. Gen. Bill Bender, the service’s chief information officer, told reporters Thursday. To mitigate the self-induced threat, Bender said, his office is rolling out...

Lessons From Iraq

Iraqi generals informed their US counterparts their military wasn’t ready to take on ISIS before the city of Mosul fell to the group, said Lt. Gen. Bill Bender, who served as deputy chief of the security cooperation office in Baghdad...

Too Many Top-Level Officers

Three former senior defense officials agreed Thursday that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should not be in the combat chain of command, but urged that his role as independent military advisor to the President be strengthened with...

Former Defense Officials Support Eliminating AT&L Position

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s proposal to eliminate the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and give his duties to undersecretaries for Research and Engineering and for Management and Support was supported Thursday by three former top defense...

Baltic Stone Soup

Warsaw, Poland Though all of the new forward-deployed NATO battalions are described as “multinational,”—Canada, Germany, and Britain will each lead a force that has members from smaller NATO countries—the fourth will be a US Army-only force. US defense officials said...

Robbing OCO to Fund Readiness

The House’s version of the Fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act frees funding to “try to turn around” a decline in readiness that has hit the Air Force particularly hard, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday....

South Carolina Guard to Deploy to Korea

A dozen F-16s from the 169th Fighter Wing at McEntire JNGB, S.C., will deploy to Osan AB, South Korea, later this month. The fighter jets and approximately 300 airmen from the 169th FW will make up the latest Pacific theater...

RED HORSE Squadrons Build Guatemalan Clinic

Pennsylvania Air National Guardsmen deployed to Guatemala for about three months to build a new medical clinic as part of exercise Beyond the Horizon. About 100 members of the RED HORSE units from Horsham Air Guard Station and Fort Indiantown...