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22 Sep 09

Technology's dark side has created a new battlefield in cyberspace, and that brings new considerations to the way military commands should be structured, according to Lt. Gen. William Lord, chief of warfighting integration and chief information officer of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
- A nice little bit of tech determinism there. - on 2009-09-22
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To be successful in such a domain, the U.S. Cyber Command and any other military force that deals with the cyber threat must develop a command structure that can be flexible, Lord said. Although the structure should be based on a traditional command model, it needs to incorporate some non-traditional elements, he said. “We need to operate without heavy restrictions. There are enormous restrictions in the offensive domain. The biggest problem isn’t the enemy, the biggest problem is us."
- Sounds like a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on offense in cyberspace. Cyberwar is so dangerous and so fast, that there's no time for oversight. Just let us do our thing; we promise we'll be good. No thanks. - on 2009-09-22
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- He called for a strong, centralized approach to network management.
  - Centralization is not typically seen as aiding flexibility and speed of action. - on 2009-09-22
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22 Aug 09

Air Force Used Twitter to Track NY Flyover Fallout

www.nytimes.com/...Pentagon-Twitter-Tracking.html - Preview

Twitter social media surveillance crowd mining Military air_force

As the Pentagon warns of the security risks posed by social networking sites, newly released government documents show the military also uses these Internet tools to monitor and react to coverage of high-profile events.

The Air Force tracked online messaging service Twitter, video-sharing site YouTube and various blogs to assess the huge public backlash to the Air Force One flyover of the Statue of Liberty this spring, according to the documents.
According to the Air Force One documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, a unit called the Combat Information Cell at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida monitored the public fallout from the April 27 flight and offered recommendations for dealing with the fast-breaking story.

Formed two years ago, the cell is made up of as many as nine people who analyze piles of data culled from the Internet and other sources to determine whether the Air Force's message is being heard.
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- A Utah Air National Guard unit, the 101st Information Warfare Flight in Salt Lake City, was also monitoring the social sites. ''To say that this event is being beaten like a dead horse is an understatement,'' reads an April 28 e-mail from the unit to other Air Force offices. ''Has really taken off in Web 2.0.''
  
  Both the 101st and the Combat Information Cell are attached to the 1st Air Force, which is based at Tyndall and is in charge of guarding U.S. airspace.
- John Verdi of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington said gray zones can emerge while monitoring social networking sites because viewing and participating is based on trust.
  
  ''Lots of times individuals upload private or sensitive information that they expect to share with their friends or family and not the whole Internet world,'' Verdi said. ''It would certainly be a major problem if the government were accessing that information under false pretenses.''

27 Jul 09

Obama Admin Crushes F-22 Supporters

www.dodbuzz.com/...vincing-senate-defeat-for-f-22 - Preview

F-22 airpower air_force procurement

“At a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, this would have been an inexcusable waste of money. Every dollar of waste in our defense budget is a dollar we can’t spend to support our troops, or prepare for future threats, or protect the American people. Our budget is a zero-sum game, and if more money goes to F-22s, it is our troops and citizens who lose,” Obama said.
- 1) So, buying military aircraft during a time of war is a wate of money, but trillions of dollars for "stimulus," health care, and on and on, is not? 2) Future threats. Assumption: Future threats won't require air superiority of the kind provided by the F-22. 3) Zero-sum budget. So then trillions on stimulus and health care will be "dollar[s] we can't spend to support our troops, prepare for future threats, or protect the American people," right? - on 2009-07-27
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Obsolete? Pilots Face a UAV Future

www.military.com/...-pilots-face-a-uav-future.html - Preview

airpower air_force UAVs military theory procurement

Already, though, some are envisioning the end of the Air Force as we know it.

Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, one of Washington's oldest and most respected think tanks, predicts a vast array of missions for unmanned craft, from stealth bombing to electronic warfare -- even dogfights.

"It's not just intelligence and bomber pilots who will be replaced with machines," said a recent article by Singer, a campaign adviser on defense policy to President Obama.

"Planning is proceeding on UCAVs, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which will replace fighter jocks, too." Last manned fighter?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is among those gazing into the future.
- Well there you have it. I've said again and again that Gates intends to gut the Air Force. Several people have thought I'm crazy. But this is the second major influence leading him in that direction: the promise of UAVs. The first is faith in the theory of fourth-generation warfare, or at least the assumption that nation-state-level warfare is obsolete. These are two very big and, at least where the latter is concerned, dubious assumptions. Are we certain enough in our ability to predict both the future of global conflict and technological development to consciously choose to give up our greatest military advantage, advantages no one else has but many desperately seek? Are we certain enough to give up one of, if not the biggest enabler of U.S. military superiority--i.e. the proven ability to dominate the air domain--in favor of gambling on a very new, largely unproven technology? - on 2009-07-27
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Already, though, some are envisioning the end of the Air Force as we know it.

Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, one of Washington's oldest and most respected think tanks, predicts a vast array of missions for unmanned craft, from stealth bombing to electronic warfare -- even dogfights.

"It's not just intelligence and bomber pilots who will be replaced with machines," said a recent article by Singer, a campaign adviser on defense policy to President Obama.

"Planning is proceeding on UCAVs, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which will replace fighter jocks, too."
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- Col. Eric Mathewson, head of the Air Force's unmanned aircraft task force at the Pentagon, said the service plans to examine all its missions to see which can be adapted for unmanned flight.
  
  He doesn't picture pilots going away completely -- at least, not anytime soon. But he can't predict what's ahead, he said, because UAV technology is still in its infancy.
  
  "You can't judge UAVs by what you see today. That would be like judging all aircraft by looking at the Wright Flyer," Mathewson said, referring to the first powered plane, built by the Wright brothers in 1903.
  - True. UAVs will likely become more capable. But in 1903, you also would not have wanted to sh*t can proven, still very effective technologies (like, say, artillery) based on the theory/promise that aircraft would eventually make those technologies obsolete. But that's what we're doing today: Betting that an infant technology will grow up rapidly, we're consciously giving up our advantage in current systems that we've already spent billions of dollars to develop. - on 2009-07-27
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10 Mar 09

Obama Seeks to Delay Tanker, Cancel Bomber

Add this to the fact that SecDef Gates wants to cancel the F-22 and slow the buying of C-17s and one begins to wonder if he is not overseeing the dismantling of the Air Force entirely. No new fighters, no new bombers, no new tankers, no new transports. At this rate, in 10 years the Air Force will have gone extinct.

www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm - Preview

airpower air_force procurement

The White House has given the Pentagon guidance to delay procurement of aerial refueling tankers by five years and cancel plans for a new long-range bomber, according to three sources close to the discussions.
Air power advocates and military officials contend that the moves, if enacted, would hurt U.S. strategic might and put at risk missions that depend on the aging tanker and bomber fleets.

“The Air Force needs a new tanker desperately,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Dunn, president of the Air Force Association. “The KC-135 tanker averages over 47 years old, and the B-52 bomber is almost as old.”

07 Mar 09

Desolation Row

This is a great chart illustrating the problems faced by the Air Force. After fifteen years of neglect, the average age of fighters in the Air Force fleet has risen to just over 20 years, double the previous highest average. And with SecDef Gates and President Obama sending signals that the F-22's days are numbered, the problem will only get worse.

www.airforce-magazine.com/...DesolationRow.aspx - Preview

air_force airpower F-22 F-35

February 5, 2009— If you want to know why USAF fighters are so old, look no further. In the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, fighter purchases (vertical bars) generally oscillated between 150 and 400 a year. Turnover was heavy, so average age (red line) hovered around 10 years. Then, in 1992, came the crash. Fighter purchases fell to almost nothing and have stayed in that desolate spot through three presidencies. With no replacements, fighters have stayed in service, growing long in the tooth. The average fighter is now an unprecedented 21 years old.

Artwork by Heather Lewis

06 Mar 09

The Last Ace

An excellent argument by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, in favor of the F-22. Considering that Somalia is so often used as evidence in favor of the 4GW school of thought (which rejects technology like the F-22), it is interesting to see Bowden take this position.

www.theatlantic.com/...air-force - Preview

future war airpower air_force F-22

American air superiority has been so complete for so long that we take it for granted. For more than half a century, we’ve made only rare use of the aerial-combat skills of a man like Cesar Rodriguez, who retired two years ago with more air-to-air kills than any other active-duty fighter pilot. But our technological edge is eroding—Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan all now fly fighter jets with capabilities equal or superior to those of the F-15, the backbone of American air power since the Carter era. Now we have a choice. We can stock the Air Force with the expensive, cutting-edge F‑22—maintaining our technological superiority at great expense to our Treasury. Or we can go back to a time when the cost of air supremacy was paid in the blood of men like Rodriguez.
American pilots haven’t shot down many enemy jets in modern times, because few nations have dared rise to the challenge of trying to fight them. The F‑15, the backbone of America’s air power for more than a quarter century, may just be the most successful weapon in history. It is certainly the most successful fighter jet. In combat, its kill ratio over more than 30 years is 107 to zero. Zero. In three decades of flying, no F‑15 has ever been shot down by an enemy plane—and that includes F‑15s flown by air forces other than America’s. Rival fighters rarely test those odds. Many of Saddam Hussein’s MiGs fled into Iran when the U.S. attacked during the Gulf War. Of those who did fight the F-15, like the unfortunate pilot framed on Rodriguez’s wall, every last one was shot down. The lesson was remembered. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Saddam didn’t just ground his air force, he buried it.

That complete dominance is eroding. Some foreign-built fighters can now match or best the F‑15 in aerial combat, and given the changing nature of the threats our country is facing and the dizzying costs of maintaining our advantage, America is choosing to give up some of the edge we’ve long enjoyed, rather than pay the price to preserve it. The next great fighter, the F‑22 Raptor, is every bit as much a marvel today as the F‑15 was 25 years ago, and if we produced the F-22 in sufficient numbers we could move the goalposts out of reach again. But we are building fewer than a third of the number needed to replace the older fighters in service.
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- When Obama unveiled his national-security team in December, he remarked that he intended “to maintain the strongest military on the planet.” That goal will continue to require the biggest bill in the world, but the portion that bought aerial dominance for so long may have become too dear.
- If Obama opts to shut down production on the aircraft, it will certainly be a defensible decision.
- But even reasonable decisions can have harsh consequences. Without a full complement of Raptors, America’s aging fighters are more vulnerable, and hence more likely to be challenged.
- Countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will be more likely to take on the U.S. Air Force if their pilots stand a fighting chance. This could well mean more air battles, more old-style aces—and more downed American pilots.
- The impact will not be felt only by aviators. Owning the sky is the first prerequisite of the way we fight wars today. Air supremacy is what enables us to send an elaborate fleet of machinery caterwauling over a targeted nation, such as Afghanistan or Iraq: the orchestrating AWACS (“Airborne Warning and Control System,” the flying surveillance-and-command center); precision bombers; attack planes, helicopters, and drones; ground support; rescue choppers; and the great flying tankers that keep them all fueled. This aerial juggernaut enables modern ground-fighting tactics that rely on the rapid movement of relatively small units, because lightly armed, fast-moving forces can quickly summon devastating air support if they encounter a heavy threat. Wounded soldiers can count on speedy evacuation and sophisticated emergency medical care. Accomplishing all this with anything like the efficiency American forces have enjoyed since the Vietnam War depends on owning the sky, which means having air-to-air hunter-killers that can shoot down enemy planes and destroy surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites before the rest of the fleet takes to the sky. Superior fighters are the linchpin of our modern war tactics. Having owned the high ground for so long, we tend to forget that it is not a birthright.
- So it is worth examining the nature of air-to-air combat today, and the possible consequences of not building a full fleet of F-22s.
- The Air Force fears that the dominance of U.S. airpower has been so complete for so long that it is taken for granted. The ability of the United States to own the skies over any battlefield has transformed the way we fight. The last American soldier killed on the ground by an enemy air attack died in Korea, on April 15, 1953.
  
  Russia, China, Iran, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and others are now flying fourth-generation fighters with avionics that match or exceed the F‑15’s. Ideally, from the standpoint of the U.S. Air Force, the F‑22 would gradually replace most of the F‑15s in the U.S. fleet over the next 15 years, and two or three more generations of American pilots, soldiers, and marines would fight without worrying about attacks from the sky. But that isn’t going to happen.
  
  “It means a step down from air dominance,” Richard Aboulafia, an air-warfare analyst for the Teal Group, which conducts assessments for the defense industry, told me. “The decision not to replace the F‑15 fleet with the F‑22 ultimately means that we will accept air casualties. We will lose more pilots. We will still achieve air superiority, but we will get hurt achieving it.”
- It was fashionable in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union to argue that the threat of conventional warfare was no longer relevant, because no other nation could compete with the United States on conventional terms. The attacks of September 11, 2001, underlined that argument; the new threat was “asymmetrical”—small cells of sophisticated terrorists against whom our huge arsenals were useless.
  
  Conventional weaponry may be useless against terrorists, but that doesn’t mean the old threats have disappeared. Russia’s incursion into Georgia and threatening gestures against the Baltic states; Iran’s persistence in pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles; North Korea’s decision to ignore its agreement to cease building nuclear weapons—all are reminders that the threat posed by belligerent nation-states is still real.
- So America’s fighter fleet is likely to remain F‑15-based, backed up by the F‑22 and F‑35, a fifth-generation fighter that resembles the Raptor but without the same maneuverability and speed. It means that the days when the Air Force’s leading “ace” has only three kills may be coming to an end. If more vulnerability means more challenges—and it usually does—then more fighters will be seeing action. If the cost of air supremacy is not paid in dollars, it may be paid in blood.

27 Feb 09

Air Force seeks airborne tagging technology

A great big folksonomy system in the sky anyone? That's what the Air Force seems to be looking into these days.

fcw.com/...rborne-tagging-technology.aspx - Preview

airpower air_force C4ISR

Air Force officials want to learn about technology that makes it possible for aircraft to remotely tag and track vehicles on the ground
The technology should make it possible to apply tags to a variety of vehicles from aircraft that are 3 kilometers or more away from a target, and the tags should be capable of being sensed and tracked for at least a few hours. Eventually, Air Force officials want the tags to last for a few days, according to the announcement.
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- The ideal tags would let trackers distinguish among multiple similar vehicles with tags, and the tags should include a time stamp or expiration feature, making it possible to know the age of a tag under observation.
  
  The tagging system must also be capable of being installed on a propeller-driven unmanned aerial vehicle.

U.S. Military: The War Within

Like Charles Dunlap, Jr., Mr. Weinberger criticizes SecDef Gate's short-sighted policies of seeing Iraq, Afghanistan, and COIN as the basis upon which to plan future forces, with the result that the Air Force is being systematically ignored, even slowly dismantled. Dunlap cites this piece by Weinberger. Both make very strong arguments about what's wrong with the dominant assumptions that underlay current DoD policies.

www.humanevents.com/article.php - Preview

airpower air_force procurement future war military theory military_reform iraq coin

20 Feb 09

The Air Force's Tug-of-War

Via the D-Ring blog, links to two stories about the internal war within the Air Force over the use of social/new media and Internet technologies more generally.

dring.wordpress.com/...the-air-forces-tug-of-war - Preview

social_media new_media air_force

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