The Air Force leadership decided at last week’s Corona Top summit to make manpower changes in some of its air and space operations centers to better balance resources with requirements. According to a release Monday, the leadership also decided to re-categorize about 835 rated staff officer billets to non-rated positions and authorize funding to augment approximately 350 military-to-civilian conversions to fill some shortfalls. To support the standup of 24th Air Force, which will oversee the service’s cyber operations, the leadership opted to establish configuration standards for the Air Force global information grid, instill network operations rigor, and update key doctrine and instructions to include cyber operations. A final decision on the heritage coat was deferred until 2010, after current uniform challenges are resolved. And, the service leadership decided that USAF should require physical fitness testing twice a year now, vice one time, starting next January, and should consolidate this testing on all installations within a fitness assessment cell. As planned, the leadership also reached some conclusions on the future makeup of Air Force forces for irregular warfare (see below). Corona Top was held June 4-6 at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Since President Donald Trump first unveiled his “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative in late January, much of the focus for it has been focused on space—how the Pentagon may deploy dozens, if not hundreds, of sensors and interceptors into orbit to protect the continental U.S. from missile barrages. But the Air…