Trump Formally Nominates Guetlein as Golden Dome Czar

June 18, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The White House this week formally tapped the Space Force’s No. 2 officer to oversee the sweeping Golden Dome missile defense project.

Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, is nominated to take on the role of “direct reporting program manager” for Golden Dome, the Pentagon announced June 18. A June 16 notice in the Congressional Record indicated Guetlein would be reassigned but did not specify his new job.

President Donald Trump announced Guetlein would run the Golden Dome program at a White House press conference last month.

Golden Dome is envisioned as a massive network of sensors, interceptor weapons, and electronic-attack tools that—like its inspiration, Israel’s Iron Dome—would protect the United States from ballistic and cruise missiles. Trump is pushing for the project to become operational by the end of his term in 2029, a goal defense experts say is unlikely.

Guetlein will be tasked with pulling together existing military systems—relying heavily on the military space enterprise that the four-star has helped build—and fielding new ones to track, warn of, and disable or destroy incoming missiles, similar to the Reagan-era “Star Wars” initiative that failed to come to fruition.

Such an enterprise would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and launch. Trump has projected a $175 billion price tag, while an independent estimate pegged the cost of space-based missile interceptors alone at more than $542 billion over 20 years.

Guetlein, who has likened Golden Dome’s scope to the Manhattan Project that developed America’s first nuclear weapons, is no stranger to major acquisition initiatives. The general led the Space Force’s acquisition branch, Space Systems Command, for two years following stints as deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office and a program executive at the Missile Defense Agency.

He’ll become the face of one of Trump’s top defense priorities, particularly as the administration looks to jumpstart its progress with a $25 billion infusion of funds through the massive GOP-led spending package under consideration on Capitol Hill. It’s unclear how much money the Pentagon is seeking for Golden Dome in total next year.

Republicans and Democrats alike have criticized the Trump administration for seeking billions of dollars to fund Golden Dome in 2026 with few details of how it would spend that money.

“We still haven’t seen a clear definition of what it is,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, said June 10. He questioned how Golden Dome would protect the continental U.S., as well as Hawaii and Alaska, without “spending a lot of money unnecessarily.”

Over the course of several recent congressional hearings, lawmakers and defense officials have begun piecing together a clearer picture of how Golden Dome might work. Air Force and Space Force leaders expect their services will play a significant part in bringing Golden Dome to life.

Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top officer, told House lawmakers June 5 Golden Dome will spur the service to take on requirements for missions that have never been accomplished by a military space organization. He expects leaders will lay the “foundational groundwork” for Golden Dome by the end of September, noting that the Space Force is already discussing how to integrate its systems with other military services and agencies.

Defense officials have floated several ideas of existing and future technologies that could become part of Golden Dome.

Plugged into that network could be heat-seeking sensors and artificial intelligence-powered targeting tools; Northrop Grumman’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Satellites that are designed to follow low-flying, fast-moving weapons; and undersea submarine-tracking sensors, among other equipment, military officials told lawmakers.

“I think that it’s a seabed-to-space approach,” said U.S. Northern Command boss Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, who is also the country’s top homeland defense officer as head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

“We need to have undersea sensors to detect submarines that can now get closer to North America than they could before based on improved stealthiness of those ships,” he told senators May 13. “Then a ground layer that can see much further out because of the advanced standoff weapons that our adversaries can now employ.”

Then add an air layer, like the E-7 Wedgetail airborne target-tracking plane, and a space layer, he said. The Pentagon has indicated it will abandon the Air Force’s plan to buy a fleet of Wedgetails in favor of eventually relying on satellites to track airborne targets—an approach critics say would leave the U.S. military far short of the aircraft- and missile-tracking capabilities it needs until those space assets are ready.

“I suspect that [Golden Dome] would be able to use a lot of the systems that are already in place and currently in development, which would give us a full capability in probably something closer to zero to five years, as opposed to something a decade out into the future,” Guillot said.

The project will also require a buildup of radars and military communications infrastructure around population centers and defense sites, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) added June 18 at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the 2026 defense budget.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin cautioned that the whole Golden Dome enterprise—from the sensors that see an enemy strike to the software that processes reconnaissance images and the weapons that neutralize a threat—”all has to be stitched together.” The service has struggled to network its own sensors and shooters as an alternative to jet-based battle management over the past several years.

“We’re doing the mission analysis,” Allvin said at the June 5 House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Department of the Air Force’s budget request. “Which systems are required . . . so we can move data to the right places and most effectively orchestrate a very complex mission set?”

While Saltzman said at the June 5 hearing it’s too early in that analysis to know whether Golden Dome would protect the U.S. from bomb-laden small drones like those that attacked Russian bomber aircraft earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers a few days later that the Pentagon’s 2026 budget request includes “robust increases” in hypersonic weapons, drones and counter-drone technology, and surveillance tools that could become part of Golden Dome.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told House lawmakers June 12 that the Defense Department is looking at ballistic missile defenses like the Army’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system and the Navy’s Aegis Ashore system to ensure they can connect to offer all-encompassing protection without any gaps.

Among the biggest lessons the U.S. can adopt from Iron Dome is Israel’s insistence on plug-and-play technology—unlike America’s bespoke systems that often need modifications or add-ons to talk to other military equipment.

“You cannot even sell a system to the Israeli military . . . that is not open architecture, that will not work with the rest of their systems, so you don’t end up with a proprietary system that’s standalone,” U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Michael E. Kurilla told HASC June 10. “We need systems that can integrate and all talk to each other.”

A spokesperson for the Senate Armed Services Committee did not answer June 18 when the panel might consider Guetlein’s nomination.

If Guetlein is confirmed, his departure from Space Force leadership would leave the Air Force and Space Force without Senate-approved vice chiefs. Trump fired Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife in February’s purge of top brass that also included the ousters of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown Jr. and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

Hegseth said at the time the firings sought to “focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.”

Spain Tapped as New Air Combat Command Boss

June 18, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Lt. Gen. Adrian L. Spain has been nominated to lead Air Combat Command, the service’s biggest command, the Pentagon announced June 18.

If confirmed, Spain would replace Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, who is retiring, and command more than 150,000 personnel and 1,000 aircraft from ACC headquarters at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

Lt. Gen. Case A. Cunningham, commander of U.S. Alaska Command, has been nominated to succeed Spain as the Air Force A-3, the Pentagon said.

Spain has been the principal architect of the Air Force’s plan to overhaul combat deployments around the world. As the A-3, he drove an evolution from “crowd-sourced” commands to air task forces and, beginning next year, deployable combat wings. The aim is to train more capable, cohesive teams that rotate into overseas assignments in a more predictable manner than has been typical in the past 10-15 years.

“America’s Air Force stands ready and able to defend the homeland, ensure a robust nuclear deterrent via our two legs of the nuclear triad, and project power around the world to deter and win as the nation requires,” Spain told House lawmakers last month. “Today’s airmen will do so with the oldest airplanes, the smallest force and with fewer flying hours than at any point in our history. Airmen have and always will get the job done. But today, they do so at elevated risk.”

ACC is responsible for organizing, training, and equipping most of the service’s air, cyber and electronic warfare forces, and is expected to take a lead role in measuring and ensuring the readiness of combat forces across the breadth of the Air Force under plans unveiled just over a year ago.

Spain faces significant challenges within ACC, where he will inherit decades-old equipment and must begin the process of planning to integrate next-generation weapons such as the F-47 fighter, unmanned collaborative combat aircraft, and more.

“The sooner we get the older aircraft off of our books and off our flight lines and into new capability, the better off for the Air Force,” Spain told lawmakers in May.

A fighter pilot who has racked up over 2,150 flight hours in over a dozen airframes, including more than 200 in F-15s and F-22s, Spain became the Air Force A-3 in December 2023. He has held several staff positions at U.S. military commands around the world, including U.S. European Command, U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Force Africa. He also led the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing out of Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates and the 53rd Wing, a major test unit at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Replacing Spain in the Pentagon would be Cunningham, a fighter pilot who has commanded the famed Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team, led an expeditionary reconnaissance wing in Afghanistan, and worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He has also run a key drone wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., and an air wing in Japan. His staff jobs included stints at ACC and with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

The Congressional Record noted Spain’s nomination for a fourth star on June 17 but did not specify which job he would hold.

Both Spain and Cunningham’s nominations require Senate confirmation.

US Air Force Reaper Drones to Test New Anti-Hacking Software

June 17, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

The computer code that runs the MQ-9 Reaper drone will be overhauled in the next two years to test revolutionary new tools that would make its software “much, much harder to hack,” the Air Force says.

Oren Edwards, chief engineer for the Medium Altitude Unmanned Aircraft Systems Division at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, made the announcement June 17.

The new tools will analyze past versions of the Reaper’s operational software “all the way from the user interface to the flight control commands,” Edwards told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Analyzing these older versions with the new tools, collectively dubbed “formal methods,” will demonstrate that the new tools are better at finding software flaws than conventional testing, Edwards said. Hackers seek to exploit those vulnerabilities to gain control of the systems.

Kathleen Fisher, director of the Information Innovation Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said the Reaper demonstration is the first of four in a campaign to promote the tools and to “significantly move the needle” on cybersecurity. The other three demonstrations, which will also be jointly funded by DARPA and their military service partners, will work with the Army, Navy, and a NASA-Space Force team, she said.

Formal methods provide mathematical proofs of software capabilities, ensuring the programs perform as intended—and only as intended, Fisher explained.

Conventional software testing verifies what software can do, but testing can’t prove a negative, she said: “It can never tell you what the system will never do.”

It simply isn’t feasible to test all the possible ways a software program might behave, she said.

“You can never, ever get enough test cases to get a guarantee the system will never do ‘this,'” she said. “But with formal methods, you can get those guarantees.”

She offered an analogy to physical security: “Right now, where we are with cybersecurity is, our doors are open, our windows are open,” she said. “We actually know how to close the doors and lock the windows. And we are choosing not to use that technology. We’re choosing to leave the doors open, leave the windows up and not use the locks.”

Using formal methods won’t make software impervious to hackers, however. Locking doors and windows doesn’t make a house impenetrable, Fisher said.

“A skilled, well-resourced adversary can probably still break in,” Fisher said. “But it will make it much, much harder to hack, and it will give us more time to defend ourselves.”

“Formal methods work when you’re talking about any kind of software systems or any kind of hardware systems,” she added. “They are very, very broadly applicable.”

DARPA Deputy Director Rob McHenry said the new formal methods can break the so-called “iron triangle”—generally summed up as “Cheap, fast, good: Pick any two you want.”

“Think about code development,” he said. “How much of the code development process is debugging? We write bad code informally, and then we spend a whole bunch of time trying to debug it and make sure it actually works as we want it to.”

Formal methods cost more up front in time and effort but eliminate the need for debugging because it mathematically proves the absence of bugs.

“If you start with a slightly higher investment in time in the beginning to make [a] formal methods architecture, you practically eliminate the debugging piece of code development, and that’s a massive curtailment of the cost and time” of the whole project, McHenry said.

DARPA has been working on formal methods for 13 years, since launching the High Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) program in 2012. But even within the cybersecurity field, the tools are poorly understood.

Now that is set to change, McHenry said. Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing provider, “has embedded formal methods throughout their operations at scale,” he said. In an organization almost as large as the Department of Defense—Amazon employs more than 1.5 million people—the company is doing the experiment for DARPA, he said.

“They have taken what was early technology coming out of the HACMS program. They have done the piloting within their organization, McHenry said.

“They have seen the successes, and now they’ve scaled it broadly and depend on it day in and day out,” for core functions like securing data and identifying users, he said.

“It is not a DARPA dream,” said McHenry. “We have evidence from real-world implementations that show us we’re ready to scale this across the Department of Defense.”

Pentagon Puts Greenland Under US Northern Command

June 17, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The Pentagon has given U.S. Northern Command responsibility for U.S. military operations in and near Greenland after President Donald Trump expressed interest in acquiring the Danish territory.

Defending Greenland was previously the responsibility of U.S. European Command. But Greenland, an icy island in the High North between North America and Europe, will now fall under NORTHCOM.

The “change will strengthen the joint force’s ability to defend the U.S. homeland, contributing to a more robust defense of the Western Hemisphere and deepening relationships with Arctic allies and partners,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

The move was highly anticipated as the Trump administration and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reviewed the U.S. command structure. But it also has political resonance in light of Trump’s goal of making the territory part of the United States.

The administration has also reportedly considered combining U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command and placing U.S. Africa Command under U.S. European Command. But no other changes to how the Pentagon manages operations around the world were announced.

In May, Hegseth ordered a 10-percent reduction in the number of general and flag officers through a “realignment” of the unified command plan—part of an overall plan to reduce the number of generals by 20 percent across the military. But the Pentagon has yet to spell out how the reorganization of commands would achieve that aim.

Denmark, which governs Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory, is a NATO ally of the U.S. and has rebuffed Trump’s desire to annex the island.

“We look forward to working with Greenland to ensure that it is secured from any potential threats,” Hegseth told Congress earlier this month. He repeatedly declined to directly answer questions from lawmakers about military plans to acquire the territory.

The island is home to a key Space Force installation, Pituffik Space Base. It was formerly known as Thule Air Base when it was controlled by the Air Force, and has long been an important outpost for the U.S. military, first as a Strategic Air Command base during the Cold War and later taking on space-related missions.

Trump administration officials have stressed Greenland’s strategic importance, which abuts the Arctic Ocean and houses missile warning and satellite control facilities. Shifting oversight of U.S. military operations in Greenland will place the territory under NORTHCOM boss Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, who also leads the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

“There’s been really an enhanced attention … to the security importance of the Arctic and High North to collective defense,” a senior NATO official told reporters June 17, speaking on the condition of anonymity during an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

Danish officials pledged to invest in the island but have pushed back on Trump’s desire to control Greenland.

“We are willing to invest more in the development of the Greenlandic society,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said June 17. She said that could include investments in “critical infrastructure that both has a defense and military perspective.”

One plan that has been under consideration within the Trump administration would propose that Greenland declare its independence from Denmark and then enter into a “Compact of Free Association” with the U.S. The U.S has such agreements with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau in the Pacific. Those nations remain independent but allow the U.S. military to operate extensively in exchange for America’s pledge to provide essential services.

B-52 Engine Replacement Slowed by Inlet Issues

June 17, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The B-52 bomber’s re-engining program has hit a delay as an inlet redesign pushes the critical design review into next year. Despite the setback, a federal watchdog agency says initial operational capability remains on track for 2033.

The 10-month delay stems from “ongoing engine inlet issues” discovered during testing, the Government Accountability Office said in its annual report on the progress of major weapons programs, released last week. Distortion was creating non-uniform airflow that can affect the engine’s performance, spurring the need for a redesign.

GAO also said the delay was caused by a lag in Boeing’s paperwork, and faulted the company for not taking a more comprehensive, digital approach to the program.

The watchdog office also said it will take nearly 50% longer to complete a related effort to modernize the bomber’s radar, totaling nearly nine years rather than about five. The Air Force recently indicated that delay would likely trigger a so-called Nunn-McCurdy breach, which prompts the Pentagon to review an acquisition program and reset its expected cost and schedule.

The two modernization programs comprise the bulk of Stratofortress upgrades designed to keep the 64-year-old bomber fleet flying for another 50 years. Boeing is the overall integrator for the engine, radar and other B-52 upgrades.

The redesign is isolated to the inlet, provided by Boeing, rather than the Rolls-Royce F130 engine that will replace the eight Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines on each B-52. Air enters a jet engine through its inlet, which directs the flow through the compressor and affects the amount of thrust an engine can achieve. The program office told the GAO that the inlet now “meets performance and operability requirements,” according to the report.

Wind tunnel testing of the redesigned inlet is slated to wrap up this summer. An Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine the service aims to formally start more intensive development on the re-engining program this summer as well.

The critical design review is expected next April, “three years later than originally planned,” GAO added. An initial production decision is now projected for March 2028 at the earliest, after two test aircraft are delivered. The Air Force plans to flight-test the new engines for 18 months before industry starts installing them on the operational fleet.

The Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) will replace the engines, engine struts, the electrical power generation system, and engine cockpit displays for the B-52H fleet.

While the effort used “some digital engineering and virtual prototyping practices during [the] rapid prototyping effort,” it did not use them to its full advantage, the GAO said. Boeing argues it’s difficult to use digital engineering practices on legacy systems.

The program “is currently using some digital models, including aviation performance, system, and computational fluid dynamics models to support design decisions and develop the engine modification,” the GAO noted.

Boeing plans to create a single source of information to share details of the project with its stakeholders, the GAO said. But that “digital thread” won’t offer the real-time data that would be generated by a digital model of the inlet, the watchdog noted. Most of the new components are modified commercial items that can’t be easily repurposed into a new design, Boeing told the GAO.

The engine replacement transitioned from a faster middle-tier acquisition program to a more traditional major equipment acquisition in December 2023. That added a year to the program, the GAO said, noting that the engineering, manufacturing, and development phase was to start this month. But the Air Force declined to comment on whether that has happened, or if it will by the end of the month.

The GAO also said the program’s software drops have been running six months late.

The program office said the CERP production strategy “strikes a balance between risk and urgency; involves extensive component and subsystem testing in integration laboratories and is augmented by digital modeling; and is structured to reduce risk prior to production.”

B-52 Radar Modernization

The radar modernization program—which will replace the current and obsolete AN/APQ-166 radar used for mapping and targeting with the AN/APQ-188 on all 76 B-52H aircraft—“continues to struggle with schedule delays while mitigating cost increases,” the GAO reported.

The Air Force recently said the program will see a “non-critical” Nunn-McCurdy breach, meaning its baseline schedule or cost has grown by up to 15 percent. The bomber requires the radar “for mission-essential aircraft navigation and weather avoidance,” GAO said, but currently suffers from obsolete radar technology and a dwindling supplier base.

GAO noted the radar modernization’s first two low-rate production decisions have each been pushed back by almost a year, to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 and the second quarter of fiscal 2027, respectively. The program office chalked up the delays to “environmental qualification, parts procurement, and software,”driving up costs as well, the GAO said.

The Air Force expects to have a revised cost estimate for the radar modernization this summer, GAO said. An integration lab that could help speed development planned to open its doors in May.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee’s cybersecurity panel on May 8, Darlene Costello, then one of the Air Force’s top acquisition officials, said she is “pretty confident” the radar program’s woes won’t get markedly worse, triggering further oversight. That’s why the service is continuing with the program, she said.

“We believe we can find an affordable way forward to deliver the needed capability,” Costello said, perhaps by shrinking the scope of the upgrade and adding more improvements later.

The GAO said the delays could “provide the program with an opportunity to embrace an iterative development effort, wherein the minimum viable product’s design matures with each iteration, resources are based on demonstrated achievement, and potential problems are identified early through collaboration with stakeholders.” Defense acquisition programs have long been plagued with setbacks because they wait to develop a slew of capabilities before fielding new equipment or software, rather than offering troops a minimum viable product and improving it later.

Like the re-engining effort, the radar modernization isn’t using modern digital design tools that help develop equipment faster. The program office told GAO that a digital twin or thread is “difficult and costly to develop, largely due to 20-year-old radar hardware design” on the venerable bomber.

The new radar expects to complete testing in June 2028, with initial operational capability and full-rate production to follow by May 2030.

Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, said in May that if the B-52 upgrade “goes worse than we hope, then we would need more” brand-new B-21 stealth bombers.

One Hypersonic Missile’s Delay May Explain Comeback of Another

June 16, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile is delayed and may significantly overrun its expected cost, which could partially explain why the service is reviving the hypersonic AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid-Response Weapon.

The Government Accountability Office, in its annual report to Congress on the status of various major defense programs, said last week that the HACM is “behind schedule,” though the Air Force is working with prime contractor Raytheon and engine supplier Northrop Grumman to field the weapon on time.

The service and the contractors are working to “develop a new schedule baseline that still adheres to the 5-year time frame for rapid prototyping efforts,” which calls for initial fielding of HACM around 2027.

Raytheon, a division of RTX, is “projecting that it will significantly exceed its cost baseline” for HACM, the GAO reported. The Air Force is considering dropping two flight tests as a cost-saving measure to get spending back on track, the watchdog agency said.

HACM, the Air Force’s preferred hypersonic missile, is envisioned as a weapon small enough to be carried by F-15 or other fighters and able to travel at five times the speed of sound. The HACM vehicle is propelled to hypersonic speed by a booster that separates from the main weapon; the vehicle then ignites an air-breathing engine that powers it to its target.

“The Air Force plans to build 13 missiles during the rapid prototyping effort,” the GAO said, “including test assets, spares, and rounds for initial operational capability.”

The service expects to start rapidly fielding missiles in fiscal 2027 before tweaking its design ahead of full production, “based on global power competition and urgency” to address threats, GAO said. A decision to begin full production would come in 2029, the Air Force told the watchdog agency.

In April, the Air Force declined to comment when asked if the HACM would fly for the first time in the first quarter of 2025 as planned. A service spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the time that the service would begin withholding information on its hypersonics programs for security reasons. A Raytheon spokesperson directed all inquiries to the Air Force.

The HACM is one of several hypersonic design initiatives underway within the Air Force. Lockheed Martin tried to develop the AGM-183 ARRW in a rapid maturation effort that yielded mixed results in testing. Though the last few tests, which mimicked operational flight, were generally satisfactory, the service paused funding for the effort in its fiscal 2025 budget.

The Air Force said hoped to continue research and development using data acquired from the program, but Andrew Hunter, the service’s former acquisition boss, told the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces panel in 2023 that the Air Force did not “intend to pursue follow-on procurement of the ARRW once the prototyping program concludes.” A senior service official later reported the ARRW was “officially dead.”

That seems to have changed, however. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin told House lawmakers on June 5 that the service’s fiscal 2026 budget request will include two different hypersonic weapon programs. That includes ARRW, a “larger form factor [missile] that is more strategic, long-range, that we have already tested several times,” he said.

Allvin said the Air Force is accelerating ARRW’s development as well as procurement.

In the same hearing, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the Air Force is determined not to buy a token number of hypersonic missiles. “We’ve got to be able to buy more than 10,” he said, adding that the Air Force has “a big focus” on achieving scale and low cost for the weapons.

Unlike the HACM, ARRW is a large weapon that will be carried solely on a B-52 bomber’s wing pylons. The booster—borrowed from an Army Tactical Missile System rocket—propels the warhead to hypersonic speed, after which it glides to its target. The Air Force prefers the HACM, though, because it is smaller, more maneuverable and longer-range because of its air-breathing engine. The weapon may also be carried by a broader range of fighters and bombers in the future.

A former senior defense official argues it makes sense to keep ARRW going because the HACM’s delays are “just what you would expect with a cutting-edge technology.”

“It’s generally a good idea to have an alternative,” he said.

Even if HACM works out, he added, then the Air Force has two options instead of becoming dependent on a single one. “We will learn a lot from continuing to fly ARRW,” he said, and that learning can shape other hypersonics programs.

Raytheon has received about $1.4 billion from the Air Force for the HACM program so far. The missile began as a middle-tier acquisition program, which can move faster than typical procurement, but will likely become a more traditional major defense acquisition program at some point.

The GAO said HACM’s preliminary design review, slated for March 2024, was postponed by six months because “the program needed more time to finalize the hardware design.” Quoting Air Force officials, the GAO said “another review, scheduled for 2025, would validate the fully operational configuration for use in the final flight tests.”

“Program officials said that the delays will reduce the number of flight tests the program can conduct during the 5-year rapid prototyping effort from seven to five,” the watchdog added.

Even with five test flights instead of seven, the Air Force told the GAO “that the program will still be able to establish sufficient confidence in the missile to declare it operational and to meet all the [rapid acquisition] objectives.”

The HACM program “is prioritizing capabilities that can be fielded quickly,” GAO said The Air Force is deciding which capabilities it wants in a minimum viable product, and will set those criteria in the missile’s final design review this year.

As part of that process, the HACM program is soliciting operator feedback on the missile’s design and tracking digital information for “every part with a serial number,” GAO said. Raytheon can then assemble the digital components into a model that can be tested in simulations.

The program told GAO that it has “revised its transition strategy to align with Air Force goals for having a larger inventory of missiles sooner, while simultaneously improving the manufacturability of the design and expanding the capacity of the industrial base,” the report said.

Tankers Deploy to Europe as US Weighs Options in Israel-Iran War

June 16, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Dozens of aerial refueling tankers have flown from American military bases to Europe as the U.S. considers its options for potential involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict, U.S. officials said. The Navy has also dispatched the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the Middle East from the Pacific.

The armada of over two dozen tankers—a mix of KC-46 Pegasus and KC-135 Stratotanker jets—deployed to Morón Air Base, Spain; Ramstein Air Base, Germany; and other European bases, according to open-source flight tracking data.

U.S. officials said the forward deployment provided President Donald Trump and the U.S. military with more flexibility in their decision-making. As of June 16, the tankers did not appear to be heading farther east to U.S.-run bases in the Middle East. The U.S. Air Force’s Europe-based aerial refueling jets occasionally support missions in U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged June 16 he has ordered additional U.S. forces to the Middle East, but did not provide further details.

“Over the weekend, I directed the deployment of additional capabilities to the United States Central Command Area of Responsibility,” he wrote on X. “Protecting U.S. forces is our top priority and these deployments are intended to enhance our defensive posture in the region.”

Israel began striking military and nuclear targets June 12 using over 200 warplanes, according to the Israel Defense Forces, and has continued every day since. The Trump administration has said that the U.S. is not involved in Israel’s ongoing air campaign against Iran.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News June 16 the U.S. has helped defend Israel against Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone strikes.

“We’ve gotten tremendous help from President Trump,” Netanyahu said. “American pilots are shooting down drones that are aimed at our cities along with our pilots. We have two THAAD batteries that are based in Israel that are helping bring down these murderous missiles. We have Aegis ships that are helping us. And it’s deeply appreciated. As far as what else America will do, that’s up to President Trump.”

The Biden administration offered similar assistance during shorter confrontations between the rival countries last year. U.S. and allied fighter jets and air defense systems last April helped down roughly 80 drones and six missiles—some of the 300 projectiles sent towards Israel in that skirmish—and helped Israel fend off an attack by 200 Iranian missiles in October.

The United Kingdom said June 15 it sent additional fighter jets to the region. The Royal Air Force has also defended Israel from Iranian attacks in the past.

New Normandy Memorial Honors Eighth Air Force Airmen Crucial to D-Day Victory

June 16, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

For nearly a century, the Normandy battlefield has been a place to honor the brave Soldiers who stormed Fortress Europe on June 6, 1944. But in all those years, nothing has stood to memorialize the Airmen of the Eighth Air Force who were charged with destroying the German Luftwaffe to clear the way for the invasion force—until now.

A new Eighth Air Force Memorial, tucked behind the D-Day landing beaches, immortalizes those Airmen in bronze 81 years after they defeated the Nazi air force, suffering tens of thousands of combat deaths along the way.

“This was so long overdue,” said T. Michael “Buzz” Moseley, a former Air Force chief of staff who helped bring the memorial to fruition. “Can you imagine being a squadron commander in one of those bomb groups?”

U.S. Air Force airmen and Allied troops look at the newly unveiled 8th Air Force memorial at Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Normandy, France, June 5, 2025. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Reece Heck)

As Allied forces planned Operation Overlord in late 1943—their invasion of German-occupied France during World War II—U.S. Airmen took on a no-fail mission. Operation Pointblank sought to take control of Nazi airspace, as well as to weaken Germany’s fighter fleet and its manufacturing base, to give D-Day a better chance of success.

For Operation Overlord planners, “there’s a reality of, you’re not going to get across the [English] Channel, and you’re not going to cross that beach if the Luftwaffe is intact,” Moseley said.

Moseley partnered with Ross Perot Jr., son of the American billionaire and two-time presidential candidate, and Dorothea de La Houssaye, founder and chairman of the Normandy Institute, to get the memorial project off the ground in 2023.

The time was right: Production had started on the Apple TV+ miniseries “Masters of the Air,” infusing momentum into the memorial effort. The series, based on Don Miller’s bestselling book of the same name, brought to light Eighth Air Force’s sacrifices during the war.

Over the course of World War II, the “Mighty Eighth” became the largest fleet of fighter and bomber aircraft in the world, according to the Air Force. It could launch more than 2,000 bombers and 1,000 fighters on a single mission, and flew more than 600,000 sorties and dropped more than 670,000 tons of bombs by the end of the European campaign in May 1945.

Eighth Air Force suffered 26,000 fatalities during World War II; another 28,000 of its Airmen were prisoners of war, the Air Force said. The organization earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 Distinguished Service Crosses, and more than 420,000 Air Medals.

“People really don’t understand the contributions that Airmen made in World War II,” Moseley said.

Part of Operation Pointblank intended to destroy the Nazi aircraft production industry. One of the operation’s deadliest raids occurred on Oct. 14, 1943, when B-17 bombers from the Eighth targeted the precision-bearings plant in the German city of Schweinfurt.

Of the 291 bombers that flew the mission, 60 were shot down, resulting in roughly 600 Airmen lost over enemy territory, according to Air Force casualty figures. The date has become known in Air Force history as “Black Thursday.”

Some bomber groups suffered extremely high losses. The 97th Bomb Group lost seven out of 19 B-17s on the mission; the 384th Bomb Group lost nine out of 16. The 305th Bomb Group was hit hardest, losing 13 of its 15 bombers, according to a 1962 lecture at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

The high cost of the raid, and others that preceded it in the previous months, prompted senior leaders to temporarily suspend long-range strikes against targets beyond the range of fighter escorts.

The air war shifted in the Allies’ favor in late February 1944, when the Eighth, along with the newly activated Fifteenth Air Force and the Royal Air Force, renewed its deep-strike raids into Germany—later known as “Big Week.” By then, the Allies had enough long-range P-51 fighter aircraft to accompany heavy bombers all the way to their objectives.

Operation Pointblank’s strategy changed when Maj. Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle took command of the Eighth that January. Doolittle became a legend after the attack on Pearl Harbor for leading 24 crews of volunteers in B-25B Mitchell medium bombers on a daring mission to strike Tokyo on April 18, 1942.

In early 1944, Doolittle ordered his fighter aircraft to go on offense against the Luftwaffe fighter force.

“‘Your job is not to escort the bombers,’” Moseley said, describing Doolittle’s new standing order for fighter pilots. “‘Your job is to kill the Luftwaffe.’”

Eighth Air Force fighter formations began to hunt down German fighters, destroying them in the air and on the ground. A vicious air battle ensued over the skies of Germany, inflicting heavy losses on the Luftwaffe.

German pilot morale was devastated. One German fighter pilot and squadron commander summarized the feeling in his diary, according to the USAFA lecture: “Everytime I close the canopy before taking off, I feel that I am closing the lid of my own coffin.” The Luftwaffe collapsed under continuous assault in the weeks that followed.

As organizers looked to capture that history, they quickly decided the memorial needed to represent the people that made up the Eighth Air Force—a commander, a fighter pilot, a bomber pilot, and a gunner. After some debate, the memorial would feature four life-size statues of Doolittle, Col. Don Blakeslee, Lt. Col. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal, and Sgt. Maynard “Snuffy” Smith.

“We picked Doolittle; that was easy. He was the commander,” Moseley said. For the fighter pilot, he wanted Blakeslee.

“He flew more combat in World War II than anybody. He led more missions than anybody,” Moseley said. “[Blakeslee’s] 4th Fighter Group killed over 1,000 German planes.”

Rosenthal was selected as the bomber pilot. The lawyer-turned-aviator was shot down twice over 52 combat missions and later served as an assistant to the U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

Smith was chosen to represent the Airmen who manned the bomber’s multiple machine guns. A ball gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, Smith became the first enlisted Airman in the U.S. Army Air Forces to receive the Medal of Honor for valor in World War II.

Tech. Sgt. Michelle Doolittle (left), Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, and Eighth Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost visit the statues of the Eighth Air Force Memorial in Normandy, France, during a dedication ceremony June 5, 2025. Photo courtesy of Armagost.

And there’s a familial connection: Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, Jimmy Doolittle’s granddaughter, found out about the memorial when a friend from the Warhawk Air Museum in Idaho called to ask if she would help its sculptor, Ben Victor, craft Doolittle’s likeness.

Hoppes flew from her home in Newport Beach, California, and ended up modeling a glove and holding her hand the same way her grandfather does in the statue.

The museum also loaned the uniforms and aviation equipment used to create the statue. Victor painstakingly worked with Moseley to ensure the Mae West harnesses, pistols, patches, and other details were as accurate as possible.

The statues themselves also contain pieces of B-17 and P-51 aircraft that were donated by collectors, Moseley said.

“Inside Doolittle is a piece of a P-51 and a B-17. … Inside Rosenthal and Smith, there are pieces of a B-17, and inside Blakesley is a piece of a P-51,” Moseley said. “Now that’s cool.”

Past and present converged at the June 5 dedication ceremony in Normandy as current Air Force officials and Doolittle’s relatives for the statues’ unveiling.

“Victory would not have been possible without supremacy of the skies, a supremacy earned through valor, innovation, and sacrifice of the men of the Eighth Air Force,” Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa deputy commander, said at the dedication. “The Eighth Air Force taught us that freedom is not free, that air superiority is earned through sacrifice, and that every generation must guard the cause of liberty.”

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michelle Doolittle—Jimmy’s distant cousin and a member of the U.S. Air Force in Europe Band—sang the U.S. and French national anthems at the ceremony.

Performing at the dedication “drives home how much of an honor it is for me, personally, to do what I do with his name,” Tech. Sgt. Doolittle said. She was close to tears when a World War II veteran began to sing along.

Hoppes said she had never seen bronze statues that capture movement so beautifully.

“I was stunned when I first saw it,” she said. “The detail is unbelievable. … They’re alive. The statues move.”

It’s a fitting tribute to brave men who sacrificed so much to make the Normandy invasion possible, she said.

Moseley, who led the ceremony, noted the memorial’s location at La Fière Bridge also saw heavy fighting on D-Day.

“This is sacred ground,” he said. “It’s only fitting that these four Airmen be there, because these guys represent what it took to get there.”

This story was updated at 1:28 p.m. on June 17 to correct a description of Ross Perot Jr., an American businessman, former Airman, and past chairman of the Air Force Memorial Foundation. He is the son of American billionaire and two-time presidential candidate H. Ross Perot.

Pentagon Reviewing Base Defense as Experts Warn of Pacific Threats

June 15, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

The recent Ukrainian drone strike on Russian bomber bases is raising alarm among U.S. officials, who worry that American military installations worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to attack.

The daring June 1 mission, nicknamed “Operation Spiderweb,” has prompted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine to review the U.S. military’s base defense systems and identify counter-drone technology they could speed to installations at home and abroad.

“Cheaper, attritable, commercially available drones with small explosives represent a new threat, as was exemplified in that operation,” Hegseth told Senate lawmakers June 11. “It’s a critical reality of the modern battlefield that we have a responsibility to address.”

Defense experts say the drone threat represents only part of a larger, looming problem: U.S. air bases in the Pacific are increasingly vulnerable to air attacks.

For the past year, defense experts have warned that the Air Force has underfunded investments in air base defense for its fixed installations in the Pacific while China’s arsenal of cruise and ballistic missiles, along with its offensive drone capability, continues to grow.

To address the issue, the Air Force should explore fielding its own missile defense interceptors and invest heavily in rapid runway repair, blast-resistant shelters, and other passive measures to ensure it can launch fighter sorties even while under repeated bombardment, researchers at RAND Corp., a federally funded think tank, recommended in a recent study.

A Jan. 7 Hudson Institute report and a paper published last summer by the Air and Space Forces Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies echoed similar warnings that American air base defenses inadequately protect against missiles and drones, especially in the Pacific.

Air base defense has long been a complex problem for Air Force leaders. Most of its missile interceptor protection, such as Patriot and other active defense systems, come from the Army, which must protect its own force as well. The Air Force has more control over its own investments to harden air bases against attack, but passive defenses often rank low on the budget priority list when competing against the F-47 and other expensive aircraft modernization programs.

In March, former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he had favored cutting the F-47 fighter program—one of the service’s highest acquisition priorities—to afford other initiatives like air base defense. The Army’s limited number of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, systems won’t be enough to defend fixed air bases and support the Air Force’s agile combat employment strategy of spreading forces across temporary, austere air bases, he said.

Dispersing forces can decrease vulnerability to attack, but ACE locations won’t be invisible to China’s space-based targeting systems. China has placed hundreds of satellites in orbit to form a network designed to track U.S. and allied forces in the Pacific.

“If we leave our bases vulnerable to attack, the F-22s, the F-35s, and the F-47s will never get off the ground,” Kendall said on the Defense & Aerospace Report podcast.

Tracking Foreign Stockpiles

While the U.S. and its allies should not discount the threat of Russian military strikes on European bases, it may take Moscow years to reconstitute its long-range strike capability after three years of war against Ukraine, experts say.

On the other hand, China over the last several decades has poured funding into long-range cruise and ballistic missiles that threaten U.S. air bases throughout the Pacific, RAND argues. It has also demonstrated drone swarms and aims to be the “preeminent producer and user of such systems,” the report said..

“China is capable of attacking all U.S. bases in the Indo-Pacific region,” researchers wrote. “Although such vulnerabilities are well-known, air base defense has not kept pace with the continued technological threats to air bases and other military installations.”

While China does not have an unlimited supply of missiles, since 2012 it has increased its inventory “more than fivefold for launchers and nearly fourfold for total missile numbers,” RAND said.

For instance, China’s stockpile of intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which can travel up to 3,500 miles, has increased from just 20 missiles in 2012 to 500 missiles in 2023—a 2,400 percent increase, according to RAND. Researchers also noted similar upticks in medium-range ballistic missile launchers and missiles, which can travel up to 2,100 miles. Those ranges may have grown, thanks to technological advances, RAND added.

In comparison, Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, the closest U.S. Air Force installation to China, sits less than 250 miles away from the Chinese coast across the Yellow Sea. Andersen Air Force Base, a strategic outpost on Guam that is expected to be a key staging area in a future Pacific conflict, is fewer than 2,000 miles away.

Limits of Army Air Defenses

While Pentagon investments in missile defense systems remained steady between 2019 and 2024, experts maintain that the Army’s force-protection capabilities and capacity may not be aligned with the needs of air bases.

“It appears that the Army has prioritized ground-based air defense for Army units, first and foremost,” said J. Michael Dahm, who researches aerospace and China at the Mitchell Institute. Dahm authored the July 2024 policy paper that discusses how a lack of resources and funding has caused Air Force base protection, especially in the western Pacific, to atrophy over the last 30 years.

Agile combat employment means Air Force units will “move around theater to find places that they can operate from, probably for a short period of time, pick up and move somewhere else.” said Dahm, a retired Navy captain.

“There could be greater investment in short-range air defenses,” said Dahm, adding that the Army should invest in systems that can be loaded onto a Humvee.

Daniel Karbler, a retired Army lieutenant general, sees things differently.

“I would challenge somebody in the Air Force to tell me what air base doesn’t have coverage,” said Karbler, a senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project.

Karbler, who commanded the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command in 2019 as well as the Pacific-focused 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command from 2012-2014, said Army air defense leaders are recovering from the service’s decision in the late 1990s to get rid of short-range air defense battalions.

Over the past several years, the Army has funneled resources toward air defense to rebuild a huge gap in short-range defenses,” Karbler said.

“Yes, we protect our Army forces, but not every infantry platoon or armored platoon, or even company, is going to have an air defense branch element,” Karbler said. “We have really pushed down counter-drone technology and capabilities, and we train these maneuver guys on using these systems, because we can’t do it all. . . . That’s part of what the Air Force needs to look at, too.”

Cheaper, Air Force-Controlled Missile Interceptors

RAND recommends that the Air Force “conduct a serious cost-benefit analysis of fielding its own active defense capabilities, ones that are tailored for air base defense in Pacific and European threat environments,” the report states.

“‘Free’ defenses provided by the Army are understandably difficult to turn down but may simply be too limited in number and face too many compromises in capability to provide much real-world utility to a dispersed basing posture,” RAND wrote.

The reality is that long-range systems are extremely expensive. A single Patriot missile costs $3.8 million, and THAAD missiles cost about $8.4 million each, Dahm wrote in his policy paper. The Air Force has evaluated comparatively cheap air defenses since 2022 and has concluded that the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System could be a more cost-effective option. The NASAMS, which features repurposed AIM-9X and Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, can deploy on C-130 cargo planes and consists of just three components: a radar, a fire control center, and a canister launcher.

Ultimately, the Air Force would need to invest in technology with a much cheaper cost per shot such as laser and microwave systems or even cannon-fired, maneuverable 30mm to 155mm projectiles, Dahm said. The service has researched directed energy weapons for years but has not widely deployed them.

“There is great promise in maneuvering projectiles,” he said. “The threat is coming from a particular direction, you fire the maneuvering projectile in that direction, and it can maneuver within certain parameters as the inbound cruise missile or threat maneuvers in front of it.”

An Army spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the service’s integrated air and missile defense is “undergoing the most significant modernization in its history” by adding troops and fielding the Integrated Battle Command System. IBCS is designed to improve the way sensors and shooters are integrated across the battlefield to increase capacity and depth.

Over the next several years, the Army is planning significant fieldings of THAAD and IBCS-adapted Patriot batteries, the Mobile Short Range Air Defense System, counter-drone weapons and other air defense systems, the spokesperson said without elaborating.

Experts say the Air Force should also prioritize funding so-called passive defenses that make installations harder to destroy. The service has redirected hundreds of millions of dollars from passive defenses to higher-priority initiatives in recent years. It changed course to secure about $1.4 billion in fiscal 2024, researchers said.

While the uptick in funding is a good start, experts say it must continue. Air Force leaders should be taking advantage of the “significant momentum in Congress for increases and improvements to air base defense,” RAND recommended, adding that the service “should not be seen as dithering in air base defense investments, especially passive defenses.”

The RAND report was requested by Pacific Air Forces and the recommendations were presented to the Air Force last fall. The Air Force did not provide comment to Air & Space Forces Magazine by press time.

Hardened Aircraft Shelters Needed

In 2004, Pacific Air Forces did begin to recognize the growing threat from China and advocated for hardened shelters at Andersen to protect stealthy B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters at a projected cost of $1.8 billion. But Air Force officials canceled the proposal due to a lack of funding, Dahm wrote in his policy paper.

Two decades later, China’s military has built hundreds of hardened aircraft shelters while the U.S. has built a handful, the Hudson Institute said in its own report earlier this year.

Hardened aircraft shelters cannot survive a direct missile strike, but they are capable of protecting against cluster munitions tucked into ballistic and cruise missiles, Dahm said.

“If I can build a really substantial, hardened concrete shelter with ventilation and plumbing and the whole nine yards for $4 million, that hardened aircraft shelter can sit there in the Pacific for decades,” he said. “But if I fire … two Patriots at every inbound ballistic missile, that is $8 million in engagement, and there is no guarantee that I am actually going to hit that.”

Keeping Runways Operational

Even if every aircraft survives an attack, cratered runways can still shut a base down, Dahm said.

Refurbishing runways is also vital to tanker aircraft that need more space to take off and land. And without tankers, combat forces can only fly so far.

The Air Force has been developing its Expeditionary Airfield Damage Repair program since 2021. Initial requirements called for the capability to deploy the equipment on four C-130s so a 16-member crew could resurface up to 18 craters in 24 to 36 hours, according to the Mitchell Institute paper, which added that the service should try to slash repair times.

That creates its own cost tradeoffs, Dahm said.

“I could probably guess that a rapid runway repair kit for a rapid runway repair team, and then the personnel that go with it would probably cost [roughly $6 million] … to enable that $80 million aircraft,” he said. “What is it worth to keep those aircraft flying and effective, to protect them and then enable them to generate those combat sorties, so that they can deliver effects?”

To Dahm, air base readiness has declined because recent Air Force leaders have only experienced war in countries where the U.S. enjoyed air superiority.

“The danger is something that they can understand intellectually, but it is beyond their operational experience,” he said. “Regrettably, I think it will take an attack where dozens of aircraft are destroyed on the ground, and God help us, hundreds of young men and women are killed.”

“And someone will say, ‘Why didn’t we invest more in air base defense?’” he said.