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15 Feb 24. Del Toro asks Navy contractors to consider taxpayers over shareholders. U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has a message for government contractors: Ask not what you can do for your shareholders, ask what you can do for your country.
Speaking at the West naval conference in San Diego on Feb. 15, Del Toro, a former businessman, said that in a time of war abroad and political uncertainty at home, the U.S. needs companies to deliver weapons, warships, aircraft and more on time, on budget and without excuses.
“You can’t be asking the American taxpayer to make even greater public investments while you continue, in some cases, to goose your stock prices through stock buybacks, deferring promised capital investments, and other accounting maneuvers that, to some, seem to prioritize stock prices that drive executive compensation rather than making the needed, fundamental investments in the industrial base, in your own companies, at a time when our nation needs us to be at all-ahead flank,” he said.
“Through initiatives like the Taxpayer Advocacy Project, I have directed our contract community and the Office of General Counsel to ensure that we will leverage all legal means at our disposal to ensure that the American people are also getting what they paid for,” he said.
The message was delivered to a standing-room-only crowd teeming with some of the world’s largest defense contractors. He did not single out any one company. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
14 Feb 24. Biden slashes F-35 jet order 18% in 2025 budget request, sources say. U.S. President Joe Biden wants an 18% cut in the number of F-35 jets the Pentagon buys next year after Congress’ cap on the size of the upcoming defense budget compelled the administration to find savings, two sources familiar with the situation said.
The Pentagon order for Lockheed Martin’s (LMT.N), opens new tab stealthy fighter will drop to below 70, down from an expected order of 83, for an estimated $1.6bn drop in spending on jets.
The drop in F-35 orders could impact the big defense contractor, which earns about a quarter of its revenue from the jet program. International demand for the jets, which cost somewhere between $80 m to about $120 m each depending on the type, remains strong.
Lockheed shares fell 2.6% after the news, which was first reported by Reuters.
Lockheed said in a statement they “look forward to working with the Biden administration and Congress” on the 2025 fiscal year budget in the months ahead.
Biden’s overall defense and national security budget request is expected to be $895bn, the sources said, compelling deep cuts in a wide range of programs, delays to existing programs and slowing efforts to build weapons stocks depleted by wars in Ukraine and Israel.
Budget negotiations between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget have largely concluded, but the final amount could change before the budget request is expected to be unveiled on March 11, the sources added.
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The Pentagon’s comptroller declined to comment, and the Joint Program office, which runs the F-35 program, also declined to comment.
Last year, the Pentagon projected it would buy 83 of the stealthy F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin for $9.8bn.
BUDGET CAPPED
Last spring, the Pentagon estimated, opens new tab it would need about $880 bn in 2025 and a total national defense budget of $929bn. But the two-year budget deal struck in mid-2023 capped the 2025 defense budget at 1% above the $886bn 2024 budget. As a result, Biden’s total 2025 national security budget will be $895bn.
The Pentagon’s share of the national defense budget is expected to be $850bn, according to an industry executive and a former defense official briefed on the matter.
The $30bn reduction will hit other programs as well. For example, a portion of the $2bn earmarked for missile defenses for Guam – viewed as important to deter China in the Pacific – is also among the suggested cuts.
Other programs that could be reduced include upgrades to the homeland missile defense system in Alaska known as Ground Based Interceptors and RTX Corp (RTX.N), opens new tab-made SM3-1B missiles for Aegis ships. Delayed programs include slowing orders for an aircraft carrier made by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (HII.N), opens new tab and Virginia-class submarines made by Huntington and General Dynamics Corp (GD.N), opens new tab, according to two congressional staffers.
The Pentagon was expected to also trim costs by retiring older weaponry like ships and planes that are more expensive to operate.
The cuts are not final given they will likely spark debate on Capitol Hill that could lead to an increase in the national defense budget to over $900 bn for fiscal 2025, budget watchers say.
Defense spending accounts for about half of the U.S. discretionary budget, the other going transportation, education, diplomacy and other departments. Entitlements like Social Security, the national retirement fund, constitute the non-discretionary portion of the budget.
The 2024 budget, which includes $886 bn for national security, still has not passed Congress. The U.S. government is working under a continuing resolution – which caps spending at 2023 levels until a 2024 budget is passed. The current continuing resolution that is keeping the government open expires on March 1. (Source: Reuters)
14 Feb 24. Air Force leaders sound alarm over looming yearlong funding delay. A full-year continuing resolution for fiscal 2024 would have “absolutely devastating” effects on the Air Force and Space Force’s ability to make progress on key programs, the Air Force’s head of acquisition said Tuesday.
“We have this wonderful vision, lots of great programs that we have teed up,” Andrew Hunter told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here. “[We] still need that FY24 budget to make it real.”
The Pentagon is now operating under its third continuing resolution of fiscal 2024 as Congress continues to draft defense spending legislation. The latest stopgap deal, passed in January, funds the government through March 8.
Like a traditional CR, the measure pauses funding at the prior year’s levels — fiscal 2023, in this case — and prevents the Pentagon from starting new programs and increasing procurement quantities for existing efforts. While the department is accustomed to operating under a continuing resolution for at least a portion of each fiscal year, the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act adds a twist.
The law stipulates that all federal agencies would face a 1% cut from fiscal 2023 funding levels if the government was still operating under a CR on Jan. 1, 2024 — which it was. However, the language includes a four-month grace period, so while that initial deadline has passed, Congress has until April 30 to approve FY24 appropriations and avoid slashing the executive branch’s spending.
While lawmakers tend to reach an annual appropriations agreement by March or April each year, Air Force officials signaled a growing concern that Congress could miss the late April deadline.
During this week’s conference, the Department of the Air Force distributed a fact sheet outlining the impact a 1% cut would have on its two services, the Air Force and Space Force. The measure would reduce the service’s buying power by nearly $13bn and put $2.8bn in space modernization projects on hold. It would also limit production increases for key programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Small Diameter Bomb and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, and delay seven Space Force launches, according to the department.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in keynote speech Monday that the congressional funding standoff has caused significant delays to his vision for modernizing the service. When he took on the role in 2021, he revealed seven “operational imperatives” meant to inform Air Force and Space Force budget priorities.
Initiatives driven by those priorities, 19 of which were included in service’s FY24 budget request, have yet to be fully funded.
“It would be very disappointing to me to have been in office for an entire administration and have never received any of the needed resources to be competitive — resources that we identified in the first six months I was in office,” he said.
Key among those efforts, Kendall said, is the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which will field fleets of drones powered by autonomous software and designed to fly alongside crewed fighters.
The service hopes to narrow its pool of potential CCA providers from five companies to two or three in fiscal 2024, but that timeline depends on when funding is available.
“We’re moving ahead with a sense of urgency on CCAs,” Kendall told reporters Tuesday. “As a preamble, everything depends upon FY24 being appropriated.”
For the Space Force, which requested $30 bn in FY24, the automatic cuts have an outsized impact. The $2.8 bn in stalled modernization projects represents nearly 10% of the service’s total budget.
The Space Force’s budget has nearly doubled since it was created in 2019, and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters Feb. 13 that funding delays are having “an acute effect” on the service as it continues to grow.
“Our ability to do all the missions that are required is being severely impacted by not being able to get the resources that we’ve asked for,” he said. (Source: Defense News)
15 Feb 24. House Intelligence Chairman Sounds Alarm on ‘Serious National Security Threat’ Linked to Russian Space Capabilities.
Summary: House Intelligence Chairman Turner stated that “all members of Congress” have information about a “serious national security threat,” and has called on Biden to “declassify all information” relating to this unspecific threat. US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner has publicly acknowledged being informed of a “serious national security threat,” urging the Biden administration to disclose details to the public. This threat, as reported by CNN and Politico, stems from a newly identified Russian military capability in space, characterized by multiple intelligence sources as “very sensitive” and “disturbing.” Despite the alarming tone of these reports, top Democrats on the Intelligence Committee advised against panic, framing the issue as “serious” yet “long-standing.”
In response to these concerns, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has announced a forthcoming meeting with senior members of Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, to discuss the matter in detail. This meeting, previously set for Thursday, aims to address the unspecified threat, which has been loosely reported as related to a Russian space-based “destabilizing military capability.”
Speculation around the nature of this threat intensified following the recent launch of a Soyuz-2 rocket by Russia, carrying an unidentified satellite payload for the Russian military. The payload’s capabilities remain undisclosed, but the heightened attention from US intelligence suggests it is not a standard ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) satellite. Theories include the potential for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) capability aimed at disrupting electronic communications and infrastructure.
Updated as of 19:20 EST: The New York Times and Reuters report that the US has briefed Congress and European allies on new intelligence regarding Russia’s development of a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon. Unlike an EMP, the system would likely utilize nuclear detonations to damage or destroy enemy satellites with ionizing x-ray radiation, similar to that of a solar flare. According to unnamed US officials, this weapon, not currently in orbit, represents a significant escalation in space and nuclear capabilities, potentially threatening international security and stability. (Source: https://www.sofx.com/)
13 Feb 24. Joe Biden sharply rebuked Donald Trump for saying he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies that did not spend enough on defence, as the US president pleaded for Republicans in Congress to pass a $95bn funding bill including aid for Ukraine. Speaking at the White House on Tuesday after the Senate approved the national security legislation with bipartisan support, Biden issued his most strident criticism yet of comments made by Trump last Saturday at a rally in South Carolina. “Just a few days ago, Trump gave an invitation to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to invade some of our allies, Nato allies,” Biden said. “No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. Let me say this as clearly as I can: I never will.” Biden added: “For God’s sake, it’s dumb, it’s shameful, it’s dangerous, it’s un-American.” Trump’s comments last weekend have reverberated across the transatlantic alliance, triggering deep concern and outrage from officials across Europe. At the campaign event, Trump recalled telling Nato allies that he would not “protect” countries that were “delinquent” on their defence spending, and would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to those that failed to “pay” up. Nato is set to announce on Wednesday that 18 of its 31 members will meet the target of spending 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence this year. In 2016, only five countries met the target. Biden and his campaign have seized on Trump’s comments to highlight the extreme foreign policy positions of his likely rival in November’s presidential election. “Our adversaries have long sought to create cracks in the alliance — the greatest hope of all those who wish America harm is for Nato to fall apart,” Biden said. “For as long as I’m president, if Putin attacks a Nato ally, the United States will defend every inch of Nato territory.” Biden’s remarks came after the White House cheered the Senate’s passage of a spending bill including $61bn to support Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s occupying forces, along with security aid for Israel and Taiwan and humanitarian assistance for Gaza. But the bill must now pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Mike Johnson, the chamber’s Speaker and a close Trump ally, has so far refused to call a vote on Ukraine aid, frustrating the Biden administration and allies of Kyiv in both parties on Capitol Hill. Biden said the House should “immediately” pass the bill, asking Republican representatives: “Are you going to stand with America or Trump?” “Stand for decency. Stand for democracy. Stand up to a so-called leader hell-bent on weakening American security,” he said: “History is watching.” (Source: FT.com)
13 Feb 24. Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on the Senate’s Passage of the National-Security Supplemental. I applaud the Senate’s passage of the vital national-security supplemental, which will advance our core security interests and our bedrock values as we continue to stand firm with our Allies and partners around the world. This critical piece of bipartisan legislation will provide urgently needed military aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Putin’s flagrant aggression; it will deliver additional security assistance to Israel after the October 7th Hamas terrorist assault, along with humanitarian aid for innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza; and it will bolster our deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The national-security bill will also provide additional resources for U.S. Central Command to support our forces facing attacks from Iranian-backed militias and protecting international commerce in the Red Sea from the Houthis’ reckless and unlawful attacks.
This bill also strengthens our domestic industries and provides resources to create more good American jobs across the country, including $20 bn to buy new capabilities and gear to restock U.S. military inventories, $13.8bn for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and $3.3 bn to strengthen the U.S. submarine industrial base. As was the case for previous supplementals, the bulk of the supplemental would flow through our defense industrial base, supporting American jobs in dozens of states across our country and creating greater prosperity at home and greater security around the world.
The need for this supplemental may be most urgently felt in Ukraine. Top Ukrainian defense officials have already warned us that their units no longer have the stores of ammunition that they need to hold off Putin’s invading forces.
I also call upon Congress to pass a full-year appropriation. Failure to fund the Defense Department in line with the annual defense bill would have serious consequences for America’s security, economy, global standing, and democracy.
Only one country can provide the leadership that this moment demands—and that’s the United States of America. The dangers of our time will only grow worse without strong and steady American leadership. If we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, bloodshed, and chaos. So the cost of American leadership remains far lower than the cost of American abdication and retreat.
The world is watching, and lives are on the line. I urge the House to pass this bipartisan bill immediately to invest in America’s national security. (Source: U.S. DoD)
13 Feb 24. Special Ops Command Sees Change in Mission as a Return to Roots. U.S. Special Operations Command leaders see the current move to integrate the command into great power competition as a return to its roots.
Army Gen. Bryan Fenton and Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, the commander and senior enlisted leader of Socom, spoke with the Defense Writers Group recently and discussed the changes happening in the world and Special Operations Command’s place in it.
The command has come off more than 20 years as America’s preeminent counterterrorism organization. Even before the attacks on the United States in September 2001, the command was tracking and pursuing violent extremist organizations around the world. The command operated against narco-trafficking gangs in Central and South America, as well as transnational criminal organizations in the Balkans. Socom came into its own in counterterrorism in operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, fundamentalist groups in Iraq and against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Special operators also worked with and formed relationships with national and indigenous forces from the Indo-Pacific to Europe to Africa and South America.
But before that, the special operations community was an integral part of great power competition working to “fill in the gaps” of conventional power structures when the Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe, Fenton said. “We still have to maintain and stay on the threat because it has not gone away. What I will tell you is … the special operations command team frankly is born for the integrated deterrence, great power competition era.”
But while the mission set might be changing, the values behind the force are not. “The most important line of effort that we have in our headquarters is still our people,” said Shorter. “We’re not a platform-centric organization, we’re a people-centric organization.”
The first rule of the command is “Humans are more important than equipment,” and Fenton and Shorter are sticking with that.
Change is tough. Many in the command grew up in the organization when it was sometimes jokingly called “Counter Terrorism Command” and that is what they know. But Shorter said in travels around the command, service members are making the switch to great power competition and integrated deterrence. “We focused hard on the global war on terror, and I’m very proud of what we did, but we’ve never had … pull ‘Socomians’ towards the nation’s main effort.”
So the bulk of the forces is absolutely laser focused on great power competition and integrated deterrence, Shorter said. Special operators are studying China and Russia. They are taking lessons learned from Russia’s war on Ukraine. They are studying the nature of all-domain combat and applying new tactics, techniques and procedures to it. They are also looking at better ways to integrate new technologies and equipment into the fight, the command sergeant major said.
“We always will be focused on the nation’s priorities and the department’s priorities,” Shorter said.
Still, the experience of counterinsurgency combat is valuable, and special operators can take that experience and apply it to new situations and new missions, he said.
Fenton said that people lead in the strategic priorities of the command. “If we have one more dollar to spend, we’re spending it on our people, and then we’ll wrap the technology around them,” he said.
That idea is born in the people attracted to special operations. Service members “go through a rigorous assessment selection process, and more arduous training because they really want to be at the leading edge,” Fenton said.
Transformation of the command also is all about people, the general said. Special operators must “think how we’re going to be prepared, not only in equipment or some level of technology to meet the world, but how are we thinking about the world differently,” he said. “We have to hold these different ideas in our head and actually still complete the mission, even though it doesn’t look the same as it did 20 years ago. But the outcome has still got to be the same. We’ve got to succeed for the nation.”
Typically, when a counterterrorism mission ends, organizations put the capability on the back burner. In the United States, this happened at the end of the Vietnam War and there are moves to cut the number of special operations personnel. This hits at another Special Operations truth: Special operations cannot be mass produced in times of a crisis.
The services, from whom Socom gets their recruits, are having trouble attracting new service members. Fenton said Socom has not felt that problem yet, but says it could happen further down the road. Fenton did say there is no retention problem in special operations, and that the command is already working with the services to improve the recruiting climate. He has asked members of the command to reach out to recruiters when they travel in the United States to inform the American people about the military in general and Special Operations Command in particular. (Source: U.S. DoD)
13 Feb 24. Senate passes $95bn package with aid for Ukraine and Israel, setting up showdown with the House. The Senate passed a $95.3bn foreign aid bill with assistance for Ukraine and Israel in a vote early Tuesday morning, setting up a showdown with the House as Speaker Mike Johnson has criticized the legislation.
The foreign aid package includes billions of dollars to support Ukraine and for security assistance for Israel, as well as humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine, among other priorities. It’s unclear whether Johnson would hold a vote on it and many House Republicans are opposed to further aid to Ukraine.
The bill passed the Senate despite Johnson’s criticism of the legislation and former President Donald Trump signaling opposition to the bill by arguing the US should stop providing foreign aid unless it is in the form of a loan. The Senate vote was 70 to 29 with 22 Republicans voting in favor, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“History settles every account,” McConnell said in a statement following the vote. “And today, on the value of American leadership and strength, history will record that the Senate did not blink.”
The bill includes $60 bn to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia, $14.1bn in security assistance for Israel, $9.2bn in humanitarian assistance and $4.8bn to support regional partners in the Indo-Pacific region in addition to other policy provisions, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the news in a statement Tuesday, thanking Schumer, McConnell and “every US Senator who has supported continued assistance to Ukraine as we fight for freedom, democracy, and the values we all hold dear.”
“For us in Ukraine, continued US assistance helps to save human lives from Russian terror. It means that life will continue in our cities and will triumph over war,” Zelensky said on X. “American assistance brings just peace in Ukraine closer and restores global stability, resulting in increased security and prosperity for all Americans and all the free world.”
Bill faces Johnson’s opposition in the House
The Senate passed the legislation after Republicans blocked a broader bill last week that would have combined foreign aid with a bipartisan border deal. Republicans had initially demanded that border security be part of the bill, but went on to reject the bipartisan border deal amid forceful attacks on the measure by Trump and top House Republicans.
In a statement on Monday, Johnson criticized the foreign aid bill over its lack of border provisions, saying, the Senate “should have gone back to the drawing board to amend the current bill to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe.” Johnson had previously opposed the broader bill that did include border provisions. The speaker has characterized those provisions as insufficient, despite the fact that they were the product of bipartisan negotiations and included restrictive border measures.
“The House will have to figure out a path forward and they’ll have to do it their way, but we needed to start the process and we’ve done that,” Senate GOP Whip John Thune told reporters on Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer celebrated passage of the legislation, saying in remarks on the floor, “It’s been years, perhaps decades, since the Senate passed a bill that so greatly impacts not just our national security, not just the security of our allies, but the security of western democracy.”
“I believe that if Speaker Johnson brought this bill to the House floor, it will pass with the same strong bipartisan support,” Schumer said.
Trump’s stance on foreign aid looms
The Senate continued to move forward on the bill even as Trump argued the US should not grant foreign aid unless it is a loan, signaling opposition to the legislation. Trump has also indicated he would encourage Russian aggression against any NATO member country that doesn’t pay enough.
A number of Senate Republicans either defended or downplayed Trump’s NATO comments on Monday.
“I’m 100% behind him,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said of Trump saying NATO members should be paying their dues or risk Putin invading their country.
The Alabama Republican also suggested European allies should be “very worried” about an invasion, saying they should protect themselves and not rely on the US, adding the country “can’t protect everybody.”
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said European allies who are worried about Trump’s comments need to “get over it.”
“You know, they need to get over it. They need to stand up and be tough. We need to secure our own border first. We need to take care of things here at home first. When we secure our own border, when we take care of home, great. Let’s help other people as well,” the Republican from Kansas said.
In the Senate, consideration of the bill crawled along for days as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky vowed to drag out the timeline in protest over the legislation.
Paul continued to dig in on Sunday, saying that he will hold out until “hell freezes over.” He indicated he is ready to hold the floor by speaking on the issue of national debt and other matters. “I love to talk. That’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said.
“We do this for a purpose,” Paul said. “I don’t like being here. … I’m not here because it’s fun, I’m here because I don’t think enough people are talking about the danger of the debt.” (Source: CNN)
13 Feb 24. USAF unveils command changes, wing plans in bid to outpace China. The Air Force said Monday it will create a new forward-looking capabilities planning command, refocus its training enterprise, and rethink how airmen deploy as part of a set of 24 initiatives designed to reorient the service to outpace China’s military ambitions and prevail in future conflicts.
The Air Force and Space Force’s top civilian and uniformed leaders unveiled the sweeping slate of plans at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here following a monthslong, department-wide review that began in the fall. Its results comprise one of the most significant reorganizations since the end of the Cold War.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the goal is to prove the Department of the Air Force’s competitive resolve to U.S. adversaries — particularly Russia and China — and to execute those plans with urgency.
“We can no longer regard conflict as a distant possibility or a future problem that we might have to confront,” Kendall said. “The risk of conflict is here now, and that risk will increase with time.”
Among the biggest shakeups is the launch of a new Integrated Capabilities Command. The organization will become a central planning hub as the service crafts its requirements for the decades ahead — removing that responsibility from the service’s other commands and allowing the Air Force to think more holistically about its needs.
The new command, to be led by a three-star general, is “just what the name infers,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said.
“This is where the operators will test operational concepts against our force design,” he said. “They will also ensure that when we have modernization initiatives, those are rationalized to ensure … we do not unintentionally put modernization on platforms that really don’t have a long-term play in the future force design. It wastes money.”
The move also frees up the Air Force’s major commands, which organize, train and equip troops for missions around the globe, to focus on daily operations rather than future force planning.
The Space Force will create a similar organization, Space Futures Command, to lay the groundwork for expanding the service’s missions through experiments and wargames.
While much of the proposed updates aim to revamp the Air Force and Space Force’s acquisition enterprise — including several more offices that will lend greater focus to the department’s highest-priority projects, like nuclear modernization and information warfare — the services also hope to improve how airmen and guardians are trained throughout their careers.
To that end, Allvin said, the service will replace its Air Education and Training Command with a new Airman Development Command. While few details accompanied the announcement, Allvin said the renamed command aims to streamline the educational pipeline, so that when troops move “from one part of our Air Force to another part of our Air Force, they don’t need to relearn the systems and tools and they can develop faster.”
“We believe we’re going to have a more coherent force … that can move rapidly through the future,” Allvin said. “We’re all also reinforcing mission-ready training.”
Many details of this week’s announcements, on which the service had raced to build consensus by Monday’s keynote, are still being finalized. It’s unclear where the headquarters of new organizations will be located, or how quickly the department can launch them.
Senior leaders had discussed the possibility of consolidating the Air Force’s nine major commands into a more streamlined system, according to two sources outside the military who are familiar with the internal discussions.
But rather than combine or eliminate commands, Allvin said, the service can do more to highlight the various roles within them — particularly, how they provide forces to the larger joint combatant commands like U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Transportation Command.
That includes a plan to move Air Forces Cyber from under Air Combat Command and elevate it to a service component command. AFCYBER would report to U.S. Cyber Command for daily offensive and defensive operations on military networks and systems. Doing so may allow CYBERCOM to more seamlessly direct Air Force cyber units and give the organization a larger role in managing its own training and resources.
The shift marks Air Forces Cyber’s third major move since 2018, when the organization moved from Air Force Space Command to Air Combat Command. It later combined with Air Force intelligence units to create 16th Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.
As it seeks to become more nimble and responsive to the joint combatant commands that direct daily operations around the world, the service will also turn its operational wings into “units of action,” categorized as deployable combat wings, in-place combat wings and combat generation wings, the Air Force said.
The idea is to create standardized packages of combat assets, like aircraft, maintainers and other support staff, that can deploy alongside the same squadrons with which they train, without shortchanging bases of the airmen needed to run daily operations and protect their perimeters.
The plan is expected to contribute to more predictable deployment schedules, a top focus for the service after leaving Afghanistan in 2021.
Allvin also said the Air Force will aim to mount a new service-wide training exercise in the Indo-Pacific in fiscal year 2025 that tests how pieces of the force work together, rather than limiting those lessons to individual commands.
Hints of other planned personnel changes have already trickled out, including news that the service will bring back warrant officers to bolster the Air Force’s technical expertise in cyber operations and information technology. The Air Force’s last active duty warrant officer retired nearly 50 years ago after the service deemed them too inflexible to meet its personnel needs, according to the Warrant Officer Historical Association.
The Department of the Air Force isn’t requesting specific funding for the changes in the fiscal year 2024 or 2025 budgets, but will ask Congress to move money around mid-year if necessary, Kendall said. New funding will be built into the fiscal 2026 budget request that is starting to take shape, he added, but officials will largely try to use existing appropriations in new ways.
One challenge the Air Force faces will be defining the separate responsibilities of each organization, one retired general officer told Air Force Times. Defense organizations tend to multiply over time because it’s typically easier to stand up a new unit to address a problem than to repurpose existing ones, he said, so leaders must have a clear implementation plan and ensure airmen understand the long game.
Another retired general officer questioned whether the Air Force and Space Force have enough time to put the plans into action before Kendall, a political appointee, may leave his post at the end of President Joe Biden’s current term. The department must see its vision through to the end to ensure piecemeal changes don’t cause more confusion than good, he said. “The question is, will it be done right?” he said. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Airforce Times)
12 Feb 24. Defense Official Says Countering China, Russia in Western Hemisphere Requires Multiprong Approach. China and Russia each pose different challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean, so there needs to be adjustments to the Defense Department’s strategies as well, said Daniel P. Erikson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere.
“The Department of Defense clearly plays a very important role in terms of working with partner militaries in the region and enhancing defense cooperation and our ability to work together more seamlessly across multiple domains, including air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace,” Erikson said today at an Atlantic Council event titled “Countering China and Russia in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
There are some very important elements to the challenges posed by both China and Russia that require a whole-of-government response because they are pursuing economic, political and diplomatic interests, he said.
With so many challenges, the department has had to prioritize and deal with core risks or threats to U.S. and allies’ interests, Erickson said.
The importance of democracy and democratic governance in this region is one of the United States’s core ideals, he said.
“We at DOD take very seriously the need for civilian control of the military, respect for human rights, and ensuring that militaries are abiding by the constitutional norms put forth by their democratic governments,” he said, adding that, for the most part, the department has seen militaries respect the norms of democratic governance.
Besides military partnerships, it’s critical that the U.S. private sector, U.S. industry and relevant U.S. agencies are engaging with this region “to ensure that we can make available offerings — whether it’s in defense, cyber, or in other areas — to meet the core national security needs of the countries there, Erikson said.
For example, it’s important for nations to protect their critical, national-security infrastructure and ensure that they are only using trusted vendors for such items as telecommunications equipment, which could have military benefits to China, he said.
“I also think that across U.S. industry, there really needs to be a deeper dive into what we can do to provide Latin American and Caribbean countries with the capabilities that they require at a price that they can afford,” he said.
These governments are fiscally constrained and, in many cases, have underinvested in critical infrastructure for many years, he added.
Countries in the region are facing transnational criminal organizations, climate threats, and border disputes. “So, they look at the risk posed by as something that is going to come, perhaps, in the future — but not today. And so, really, educating our partners and making sure they’re aware of how some of the decisions that they make today could create long-term risk for them is really critical,” he said.
When it comes to Russia, many of the nations have been using their military equipment for years, which limits interoperability with the U.S. and allies, he noted.
“At the end of the day, the way that the United States can meet the challenge that’s posed by great power competition in Latin America and the Caribbean is, really, by having a very proactive, affirmative and engaged U.S. agenda with the region and not just telling other countries what they shouldn’t be doing with other partners, but what they can do with the United States,” Erikson concluded. (Source: U.S. DoD)
09 Feb 24. A Nasdaq-listed Chinese technology company that makes parts for self-driving vehicles is threatening to sue the U.S. government after it was included in a list of companies the Pentagon says have links to the Chinese military.
Hesai Technology’s core product is LiDAR road sensing equipment, used in passenger and commercial vehicles, autonomous driving vehicles, delivery robots and other applications. It was among 17 companies the U.S. Department of Defense recently added to its list of companies it considers “Chinese military companies.”
The revised list also includes Megvii, a Beijing-based artificial intelligence company and IDG Capital, a major private equity investment company with holdings in many Chinese technology companies, and major Chinese energy, telecoms and aviation companies. Its investors include U.S. pension funds and foundations. Hesai’s inclusion on the list came without any explanation and the company plans to file a lawsuit, Hesai CEO Yifan “David” Li said in a statement that described the move as “unjust, capricious and meritless.” (Source: Defense News Early Bird/AP)
09 Feb 24. Chinese battery removal signals increased hostility to foreign investment amid hacking concerns. Earlier on 9 February, the utility company Duke Energy confirmed its plans to decommission energy-storage batteries produced by the Chinese battery maker CATL at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune; it will also phase out CATL products across its civilian projects. Duke Energy was reportedly pressured by Congress and the naval department to make the change amid warnings that Chinese-sponsored hackers are targeting network-linked critical US infrastructure. Lawmakers are particularly concerned by alleged CATL links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This decision comes less than a year after the CATL battery was initially placed at Camp Lejeune. Duke Energy stated it will be replaced by a ‘domestic or allied nation supplier’ to support a more ‘robust American supply chain.’ The decision signals a downturn in business relations between the US and China and will specifically impact the Chinese-dominated energy storage market. In the short-to-medium term, hostility to foreign investment is likely to increase for the energy sector; we assess that this will be sustained by Congressional scrutiny into foreign-based energy suppliers. We also assess that sustained concerns over the hacking of critical infrastructure will promote federal safeguards and bolster energy security in the US in the long term. (Source: Sibylline)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Homeland Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need. A CNIM Group Company
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