U.S. Military Needs an EMS Warfare Czar

May 11, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The U.S. military has fallen behind China and Russia in electromagnetic spectrum warfare, and one of the key ways to start pulling even again is to create a position in the Office of the Secretary of Defense with the clout to manage the joint electronic warfare enterprise, experts said on a Hudson Institute webinar.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska), co-chair of the House electromagnetic spectrum operations caucus, said Congress has “tried to fix” the problem of oversight but has gotten pushback from the Pentagon.

“One of the problems [was] … no one was in charge of EW. Everybody felt like they owned a piece of it,” said Bacon, who previously had an Air Force career specializing in electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

“Somebody in the Pentagon needs to know they own it,” he said. The services have told him that oversight rests with their Chief or Vice Chief, but he insisted that won’t work because those officers have too much on their plate already to devote the attention to EMSO that it deserves.

“You need someone at the one- or two- star level that says, ‘This is my problem. I own it,’” Bacon asserted. There was recently a two-star officer in charge of EW, but it was a temporary position, and “we need to fix that … We need to make that permanent,” he said, promising the caucus will “push” this initiative. There needs to be an EMSO czar with “an enterprise view,” he added.

In the Air Force, electronic warfare lost status in the 1990s as the service downgraded the electronic warfare chief from a two-star position to a colonel with other duties as well, Bacon said. Meanwhile, on the Joint Staff, there was “nobody in charge.”

Bacon also said there should be “a hardwired funding process” for electronic warfare, and this, too, needs an enterprise perspective to counter measures being taken by China and Russia in the EMS. Today, there are “tons of funding lines” for projects that may or may not work well together.

Rep. James Langevin (D-Rhode Island), Bacon’s EMSO caucus co-chair, said Congress needs to “undo the damage that’s been done” in EMSO oversight.

What is needed is “a policy person in charge, like a deputy assistant secretary in charge of the strategy and implementation” across the services, Langevin said. “We don’t have that right now.” The services need to accept that, “We are … operating in environments that are contested and congested, whether we like it or not.”

If Congress doesn’t force the issue, “the strategy will end up like the 2013 and 2017 [EMS and EW] strategies,” which didn’t lead to decisive action. “I’m determined that’s not going to happen this time. We’re going to get it right.”

He noted that Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said in January that the Air Force is “embarrassed” that it has neglected the EMS battle for so long. Brown called for an Air Staff EMS warfare strategy to be unveiled this spring.

Langevin also said the EMS enterprise needs to shift away from hardware-centric to software-centric systems “that are flexible and networked. And that’s not the way it is right now.”

Bacon noted that EMS has gotten attention in the Pentagon recently only because Congress has demanded it, and said Congress would keep up the pressure.

Bryan Clark and Timothy A. Walton presented a synopsis of their recent paper on EMS for the Hudson Institute, titled “The Invisible Battlefield: A Technology Strategy for U.S. Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority.”

China and Russia, Clark said, have “centralized” organizations for EW and EMS that drive doctrine and technology priorities across their joint forces, something the U.S. should emulate.

“They’ve got strong leadership at the top,” Clark said. “They’ve got strategic-level organizations that manage their national-level electronic warfare missions” while the U.S. “is much more diffuse.” Many organizations in the U.S. military oversee electronic warfare, “and our systems are not pushed down to lower echelons as they are in the Chinese and Russian militaries,” he said.

“Our field forces don’t necessarily have the ability to distribute” information, and American EW systems are not numerous enough “to get sent out with every small unit that might get deployed.”

Walton said China has, since 2006, “organized so that all military units have capabilities and training to reduce their signatures, employ camouflage, employ active and passive decoys of various types.” The Chinese have also “continued to reorganize the force.” In 2015, the People’s Liberation Army stood up an EW czar on its joint staff with “an overview of EW and cyber missions throughout the force.”

China has set up a strategic EW support force, and within each service an EW, space, and cyber division, with “their own dedicated organizations for sensing [and] reconnaissance, focused on offensive and defensive electronic attack.” These specific capabilities include “low- and high-powered jammers and directed energy weapons.” Their multi-static sensors mean they can detect intruding platforms “even if they’re not emitting,” making it “very challenging for U.S. forces to know when they’re being detected or targeted. “

Meanwhile, Walton said, Russia has invested in “more mobile, integrated forces; more agile static capabilities; and more automated capabilities,” leveraging artificial intelligence and cognitive systems “to coordinate options throughout the EMS spectrum.” Russia tried out equipment and techniques in Syria and Ukraine, using lessons learned to refine their “concepts and capabilities,” he said.

David Tremper, director of electromagnetic warfare in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said he sees opportunities for the U.S. in EMS efficiencies. Multiple services can create EW capabilities, which can port directly to the other services, he said, creating an investment multiplier effect.

“EW is unique in that I can transfer capabilities between services and I don’t need redundant systems,” he asserted. “I can spend a dollar and get five dollars’ worth of capability.” This will allow the U.S. military to “achieve efficiency that lets me absorb a flat or declining budget.” There are many opportunities for “cross-pollination” among the services, and the Army and Marine Corps are already making strides in this area, he said.

Connecting EW systems with common standards would also create “a pretty good network without any new sensors” for “consumption outside the box,” he said. This would allow U.S. forces to crowdsource awareness and achieve massive operations … and increase our survivability.”

Tremper said there are opportunities to be found without “big dollar investments” but instead through “changes in the paradigm.”

“We do have to realize we have a problem,” Bacon said. “We’ve had lots of studies … at some point, we have stop studying and start … executing … I want to start seeing some action and close this gap with a plan.”

Hill F-35s Deploy to France for ‘Atlantic Trident’

May 11, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

F-35s and Airmen from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, deployed to Europe this week to take part in multiple exercises, including a major France-led air exercise focused on integrating fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft.

The F-35s from the 4th Fighter Squadron touched down at Mont-de-Marsan Air Base, France, on May 10. The squadron is made up of Active-duty Airmen from the 388th Fighter Wing and Reservists from the 419th Fighter Wing. The base is hosting Atlantic Trident 21, which runs May 17-28, with participants from the U.S., France, and the United Kingdom.

This is the third iteration of the exercise, which will include “complex air operations in a contested multinational joint force environment,” according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe release.

The last Atlantic Trident exercise took place in May 2017 and was hosted at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. That event included U.S. F-22s and F-35s along with Eurofighter Typhoons from the United Kingdom and French Rafales. The first exercise took place in 2015, also at Langley.

This is the 388th Fighter Wing’s third deployment to Europe. The 34th Fighter Squadron deployed to RAF Lakenheath, England, in April 2017, and the 421st Fighter Squadron deployed to Aviano Air Base, Italy, in May 2019, according to USAFE.

Eglin Testers Load Five JASSMs onto an F-15E

May 11, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, loaded five AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles onto an F-15E, more than doubling the Strike Eagle’s normal JASSM load.

The May 11 test, part of the Project Strike Rodeo at the base, originated from a discussion during a January 2021 conference working group, which focused on a scenario where the standoff missiles would be employed by a bomber escorted by fighters into a contested environment, according to a 53rd Wing release.

Participants in the group “hypothesized that a formation of fighters” could be used to fire the JASSM salvo, reducing the risk to bombers, according to the release. This would require increasing the capability of fighters to carry the large missiles, since the current maximum payload is two JASSMs.

“No one told us to do this,” said Lt. Col. Mike Benitez, the 53rd Wing director of staff, in the release. “We saw the need and the opportunity, so we executed. This infectious attitude drove every unit or office we coordinated with. Everyone wanted to see if we could do it, and no one ever pushed back and asked for a requirement or a formal higher headquarters tasking.”

The test required workarounds to the loading process. JASSMs are designed to be loaded from the base of shipping containers, which cannot fit under the F-15E. The 53rd Wing, the 96th Test Wing, and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center used Squadron Innovation Funds to develop a specialized tool to load the missiles and wrote new procedures for the process.

“This is a squadron innovation effort with operational and strategic implications,” Benitez said in the release. “Project Strike Rodeo is all about creating options for combatant commanders, which ultimately can be used to create multiple dilemmas for the adversary.”

With a successful load test, follow-on flight testing would come next to make the increased capacity a reality for the F-15E fleet.

The test comes about two months after the wing also demonstrated another increase to the F-15E’s payload. In early March, the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron flew an F-15E with six Joint Direct Attack Munitions on a single side, increasing the number of bombs the Strike Eagle can carry to 15.

Airlift Continues Out of Afghanistan as Violence Remains

May 11, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. C-17s have now flown 104 loads of materiel out of Afghanistan as the retrograde continues, and U.S. Central Command plans to destroy more than 1,800 pieces of equipment.

Between six and 12 percent of the entire retrograde process has been completed since President Joe Biden announced the full withdrawal from Afghanistan last month, CENTCOM said in a May 11 statement.

One base has been handed over to the Afghan National Army, according to CENTCOM. The command will provide updates on the progress every week. Biden has ordered the withdrawal to be complete by Sept. 11, 2021.

Violence, however, remains high. A car bombing that targeted a girls’ school in Kabul on May 9 killed at least 85 people and injured 147, CNN reported.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said May 10 that there have not been attacks affecting U.S. forces in the area and that nothing has happened that would impede the progress on drawing down.

The U.S. military has deployed six B-52s to the region, along with an aircraft carrier, to conduct strikes in defense of U.S., coalition, and Afghan forces if needed. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told reporters last week the military has “adequate resources and capabilities to protect themselves.”

The Defense Department is still determining ways to support Afghan forces following the withdrawal, including possible remote ways to help Afghan Air Force maintainers work on aircraft and new basing agreements with nearby nations to host counter-terrorism forces.

CMSAF: No More PT Delays

May 11, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

The Air Force is bringing back physical fitness testing on July 1 after multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass said during a virtual coffee talk May 11.

“Read my lips: We are not changing the PT start date,” Bass said. “We have to have a fit culture, and we will resume PT testing on 1 July. So, again, leadership, make sure your folks are ready. Make sure you’re leading by example. That’s just part of our culture. If you are a fit Airman, you’re a more resilient Airman, and you’re a more ready Airman.”

It’s been more than a year since the Air Force last required PT testing, having delayed it at least four times. Bass said she recognizes that some Airman may have longer-term health effects from contracting the COVID-19 virus, and she called on leaders to work through that on a case-by-case basis.

“If you’ve had COVID and you’ve got some health issues that would prohibit you from being able to be your very best, guess what, as a leader, I’m going to take care of that. I’m not going to throw you out there and say, ‘Hey, it’s your turn.’ You know, that’s not leadership, but it’s not going to be codified in an AFI,” she said.

When the test does resume this summer, it’s going to look different. The service announced in December 2020 it would no longer score the controversial waist measurement, though Airmen will still have to get tape tested each year. Airmen will now be graded with a new scoring system based on a 1.5-mile run and one minute each of pushups and sit-ups. They also will be scored in five-year age groups, instead of 10-year cohorts like the previous test. Bass said the new increment charts will be released June 1.

“We’re going to start there,” Bass said. “From there, the exciting pieces you’ve heard me say before, we are at a point where we should be able to have options to be able to determine what somebody’s cardio fitness is or what their strength is, and we will announce what those will be.”

Bass said the new cardio assessment options are likely to start in January, but the service wants to give Airmen enough time to prepare.

USAF Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Dorothy A. Hogg said during a previous coffee talk that the service was looking at alternatives to scoring cardiovascular fitness. Some of the options being explored by the Air Force Fitness Working Group include a 20-meter shuttle run, row ergometry, planks, and burpees.

Space Force Looks to Boost Cyber Defenses of Satellites with Acquisition Reorganization

May 10, 2021 | By Shaun Waterman

The ongoing restructuring of Space Force acquisition authorities is designed in part to ensure proper cybersecurity testing and monitoring of new programs as they are developed and deployed, a senior Space Force procurement official said May 10.

The stand-up of Space Systems Command, and its absorption of the Space and Missile Systems Center, details of which were unveiled last month, was advertised as an effort to increase the speed and agility of Space Force acquisitions.

But in a lunchtime keynote at the CyberSatDigital event on May 10, Cordell A. DeLaPena Jr., program executive officer for Space Production at the Space and Missile Systems Center, stressed that it was also intended to improve the resilience of Space Force overhead architecture against new kinetic and cyber threats.

“The reason why we’ve stood up … a separate Space Systems Command for acquisition, and launch, and architecting is to make that shift from today’s peacetime architecture, … an architecture which was never envisioned to conduct offensive or defensive operations,” he said. In its place, Space Force plans a new architecture that could survive kinetic and cyberattacks by near-peer adversaries. “To make that pivot,” DeLaPena added, “We integrate all of those responses to those threats to our satellites into an integrated architecture, which will achieve space superiority.”

The new architecture, DeLaPena said, would rely on digital twinning technology, more properly called model-based systems engineering, in which a detailed virtual model of a satellite or other complex system is built so that it can be attacked and its cyber defenses tested.

DeLaPena said that cyber threats to U.S. satellite systems would be addressed in detail in a classified session later in the week, but outlined a series of “potential threats” in the cyber domain, which he said the newly reorganized acquisition elements in the Space Force would be “testing against” before turning new products over to operational commanders.

“The types of threats we are looking for [are] things like insertion of rogue components—that’s more on the supply side—malicious software, electronic warfare attack—that’s jamming, spoofing—and then denying our sensor access. And those threats, the results of those threats, could result in our satellites being degraded, or an outage, or spillage [of sensitive data], or a temporary loss of command control of our satellites. So these are the things that we are worried about.”

As part of the Space Force’s commitment to becoming an entirely digital military service, DeLaPena said, this testing would be conducted virtually, using digital twinning. Under a program called SPEED—for “satellite penetration test, environment, evaluation, and demonstration,” DeLaPena said, Space Force acquisition officials were creating “digital environments” that could test, at first, prototype satellites being developed by Space Force itself, and later “a space vehicle simulation testbed, which we will use for testing all of our satellites, from commercial and other sources.”

Finally, DeLaPena said, the service would build “within our operations and sustainment infrastructure, [a] prototype solution, which will allow us to constantly monitor and look for any kind of abnormal behavior” or internal traffic on satellites in orbit. But that kind of testing and monitoring would likely not be carried out by Space Systems Command, he suggested.

Once the command is launched in the summer, DeLaPena said, its commander “will have the prioritization responsibility in terms of the command’s risk assessments and the funding we will put across all of those risks, to include the cyber engineering efforts to ensure that every system being delivered to Space Systems Command is resilient.”

But once those systems are deployed and operational, “it’s going to be up to Space Delta Six to do the monitoring and the defending of those systems, both our space systems and our cyberspace systems,” he said.

DLA Monitoring Impacts of Cyberattack on Fuel Pipelines

May 10, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Defense Logistics Agency is monitoring the military’s fuel inventory levels as a major cyberattack has halted operations of a large-scale fuel pipeline on the nation’s East Coast.

Colonial Pipeline, which delivers about 45 percent of gasoline and jet fuel on the East Coast, stopped operations because of a ransomware attack targeting its systems. The company said it is restarting part of its network, with service expected to be restored by the end of the week, The Associated Press reported.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby told reporters May 10 that DLA is watching how much fuel is in the system. “We’re awaiting updates from Colonial Pipeline. There’s sufficient inventory on hand for downstream customers, so there’s no immediate mission impact,” Kirby said.

“DLA has the ability to leverage alternate supply means to mitigate long-term impacts if delays continue,” the agency said in a statement.

The Defense Department is “coordinating with our interagency partners” as the situation develops, Kirby added.

The ransomware attack was reportedly conducted by a criminal group called “DarkSide,” according to the AP. The company said in a statement that it “proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat, which temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our IT systems.”

Colonial Pipeline carries fuel in a system spanning more than 5,500 miles from Houston to New Jersey, touching 13 total states, according to the company’s website. The system delivers fuel to several major airports, including locations with a military aircraft presence, though the Pentagon did not specifically state which bases could be affected.

One Year From First Flight, Ray Tours B-21 Factory, Bomber Test Enterprise

May 10, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

As the first flight of the B-21 Raider bomber draws closer, Gen. Timothy M. Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, toured Northrop Grumman’s production facility and the test enterprise that will put the jet through its paces beginning next year.

Ray saw “significant progress made on the build of the first flight test aircraft that will one day make its way to Edwards Air Force Base, [California], for testing,” said the Rapid Capabilities Office, which manages the B-21 program, in a press release.

The RCO said flight testing of the new bomber will begin as soon as aircraft No. 1 is complete, and this will be driven by “key maturity events” and not “arbitrary dates.”

Randall G. Walden, head of the RCO, told Air Force Magazine that he expects the B-21 to emerge from the factory in early 2022 and make its first flight about a year from now. First flight will be preceded by outside engine runs and taxi tests of increasing speed.

Ray started his tour of the bomber test enterprise on May 5 with a visit to the 419th Flight Test Squadron, Global Power Combined Test Force. The unit performs tests on the B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers. It is also already performing tests on the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, a hypersonic missile that will equip the B-52 and eventually the B-1 and F-15. Ray has said as many as a dozen B-52s and B-1s could be involved in testing new weapons for the bomber fleet.

Continued B-2 testing “enables expanded strike capabilities while ensuring the aircraft can keep pace with evolving threat levels,” the RCO said.

Ray also visited the B-21 Combined Test Force comprising the 420th Flight Test Squadron and Detachment Five of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC), plus B-21 prime contractor Northrop Grumman. He was briefed on “readiness to support the B-21 program when it transitions into flight test.”

On May 6, Ray toured the Northrop Grumman facility at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, where the B-21 undergoes final assembly. Ray was briefed on construction of the first two test aircraft and “the value of building those test articles using the same production line, tooling, and procedures that will manufacture the final production aircraft.”

The RCO echoed what Walden told Air Force Magazine: that the production managers are applying lessons learned from building the first two aircraft “to implement process improvements well before building the actual operational aircraft, decreasing cost and build schedule.” Stable requirements and a risk-reducing strategy “have played a large part in keeping the program schedule on track to deliver operational B-21 Raiders to the first main operating base in the Mid-2020s.” Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, is to be the Raider’s first beddown and operating location.

House Armed Services Committee chair Adam Smith (D-Washington) recently made an uncharacteristically positive assessment of the B-21’s progress, calling an April briefing he received on it “one of the most positive, encouraging things I’ve had happen to me in the last couple of weeks.” He said the B-21 is “on time, on budget, and they’re making it work in an intelligent way.” The B-21 and other programs are “starting to see the lessons learned” over two decades of frustrating weapons development, and the “necessary changes” in the acquisition system are starting to bear fruit, Smith said.

Due to secrecy, and to prove out a more streamlined approach, the B-21 program is being run by the RCO rather than Air Force Materiel Command, which would normally run a major program for the service.

Collaboration between the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, AFGSC, Air Force Materiel Command, and the RCO “has paved a smooth path for transition into the critical flight test phase” of the B-21, said Maj. Gen. Christopher P. Azzano, commander of the Air Force Test Center at Edwards. He called it “an extraordinary team effort.”

The RCO quoted B-21 system program director Col. Jason Voorheis as saying the Air Force is “pleased” with the B-21’s progress and that the service and Northrop Grumman are “working closely together to make smart choices on this program to support warfighter requirements and timelines.”

Lockheed Martin Personnel Leaving Iraqi F-16 Base Because of Militia Threats

May 10, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Lockheed Martin is withdrawing personnel who support Iraq’s F-16 fleet from Balad Air Base because of threats from militias in the region, a step that will likely limit the fleet’s operations.

The move comes after some contractors had temporarily left the major operating base in recent months because of the threat from Iranian-backed militias, according to a Defense Department Inspector General report.

“In coordination with the U.S. government and with employee safety as our top priority, Lockheed Martin is relocating our Iraq-based F-16 team,” the company said in a statement. “We value our partnership with the Iraqi Air Force and will continue to work with the Iraq and U.S. governments to ensure mission success going forward.”

The New York Times reported May 10 that the company had 70 employees at Balad, with 50 expected to return to the U.S. and 20 headed to Erbil in the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq.

A senior ministry official told the Times it had asked the company to delay the decision, and the company responded that the personnel would return in a matter of months when protection would be provided.

The Defense Department’s Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve, in a report released May 4, said the contractors had left the base as militias conducted harassment-style attacks at Balad and other locations across Iraq.

This comes after contractors could not directly support F-16s at Balad in 2020 because of a combination of regional threats and COVID-19, according to the IG. When the contractors left in 2020, they created a remote system to help Iraqi maintainers while not co-located at Balad, and the personnel will use this system again, according to a source familiar to the situation.