Breaking Defense
Concerned with the Pentagon’s progress on implementing it’s joint all-domain command and control concept—an effort to connect sensors to shooters across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace domains—lawmakers are directing the defense Secretary to submit a report by the end of 2022 on exactly what capabilities will be delivered to warfighters and when.
Task & Purpose
Russia’s use of electronic warfare in eastern Ukraine provides a preview to U.S. troops about what it will be like to fight an adversary that can intercept and jam their communications, sever all links to their drones flying overhead, and blind their radars and other sensors. “Electronic warfare is almost by definition one of the hardest things to discern on the battlefield,” Russian military analyst Michael Kofman told Task & Purpose. “It seems early on Russia was not well prepared to employ these capabilities, but now there are numerous stories of localized jamming and disabling of drones.”
Defense News
The Pentagon’s new chief digital and artificial intelligence officer said the gravity of the situation and the need to get things right motivated him to leave ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. for government work. “It’s not for the joys of the job, because it’s going to be arduous,” CDAO Craig Martell said June 7 at a virtual conference hosted by the Department of Defense. “I’m doing it because of the mission.”
SpaceNews
Redwire and MDA announced June 7 they have won contracts to each produce 42 tactical communications antennas for U.S. military satellites in low Earth orbit. The antennas will be installed on satellites that will be part of the Link 16 tactical data network. The Link 16 standard is used by the U.S. military and NATO allies to exchange data between ships, aircraft, and troops on land.
Breaking Defense
A House Armed Service Committee panel wants the Defense Department to submit a new assessment detailing the Pentagon’s ability to defend against incoming missile threats, according to draft legislation released June 7. The markup section of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act from the HASC subcommittee on strategic forces also includes several provisions requesting that the department submit reports that detail plans to modernize missile defense systems and enhance sensor architecture, and a report identifying current gaps in the missile defense.
Air Force Magazine
The Air Force is transitioning to more virtual training to give pilots an edge, saying some higher end maneuvers cannot be replicated in real-time training. Learn more on Air Force Magazine’s Live, Virtual & Constructive Training page.
Military.com
With one in five military families experiencing food insecurity in 2021—up from one in eight two years ago—two major reports released this week tried to explain what's causing the rise in families facing the risk of not having enough to eat. The think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies and advocacy group Military Family Advisory Network each released studies finding that structural parts of military life, such as high rates of spouse unemployment, moving, and child care shortages are driving the growing rate of food insecurity among Active-duty military families.
Air Force Times
Nine Airmen who remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 want a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to protect them from punishment for violating the military’s coronavirus vaccine mandate. The Airmen argued in court filings that their requests to be exempted from COVID vaccination on religious grounds were wrongfully denied.
The Drive
Fighter jets from South Korea and the United States came together for an unprecedented—at least in recent years—"show of force" aimed squarely at North Korea, which launched no fewer than eight ballistic missiles June 5 in the latest incident of saber-rattling on the peninsula. A total of 20 fighters from the Republic of Korea Air Force, or ROKAF, and the U.S. Air Force were involved in the airpower demonstration, which was held off the western coast of South Korea.
One More Thing
Task & Purpose
The Air Force has a long tradition of defying the odds and pushing the envelope. Take Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, a hero of World War II who became the first human to fly at supersonic speeds; or Col. John Boyd, who defied his own service to create the F-16 fighter jet. And now, in an era when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. is encouraging his branch to “accelerate change or lose,” Airmen are taking up the challenge by printing out their uniform name tape in Comic Sans, Wingdings, and Old English instead of the standard block sans serif lettering used by everyone else in the service.
