Air Force Magazine
Daily Report for Jan. 29, 2021

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Edited by Amy McCullough with Brian W. Everstine and Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

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Acting SECAF’s Goals: Sustain Momentum, Then Pass the Baton
By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Acting Air Force Secretary John P. Roth is focused on ensuring continuity in the
department until a Senate-confirmed successor is secured, championing Air Force
and Space Force priorities as the 2022 defense budget takes shape, and
“telling the Department of the Air Force’s story,” according to a Jan. 28
departmental release. Roth also said he’s dedicated to helping the department
sustain its “momentum on both the air side and the space side,” and keeping
its eyes fixed on reaching goals laid out by the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
“We can’t afford to sit idle,” he said.

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DOD: Taliban Violence Likely to Delay Full Afghanistan Withdrawal
By Brian W. Everstine

The Biden administration still wants to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan as
long as the Taliban abides by the agreement reached last year, but that hasn't
happened yet, the top Pentagon spokesman said Jan. 28. The U.S. reached a deal
with the Taliban last year to remove all of its troops by May, provided the
group reduces its violence and denounces its ties to al-Qaida. “We obviously
are still committed to ending this war, but we want to end it responsibly,”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “It’s difficult to see how we
get there from right where we are now."

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FEMA Asks DOD for Help Administering COVID-19 Vaccines
By Brian W. Everstine

The Pentagon is sourcing a request from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
to deploy military personnel to help administer the COVID-19 vaccine, an
expected increase to the more than 20,000 Guard personnel already helping across
the country. The FEMA request, sent to the Defense Department on Jan. 27, is
going through the sourcing stages just like any request for military forces from
a combatant command, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing. An
executable plan is expected within days, rather than weeks, because “we know
there’s an urgency,” he said.

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Little Rock C-130s Return from Africa, Middle East Deployment
By Brian W. Everstine

Airmen and C-130s from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., recently returned from
a four-month deployment supporting combat operations in the Middle East and
Africa. The Airmen and aircraft from the 41st Airlift Squadron, along with
Airmen from the 19th Operations Group, 19th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 19th
Logistics Readiness Squadron, and 19th Operations Support Squadron supported
C-130J operations in U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq,
Syria, Afghanistan, and U.S. Africa Command. They returned home between Jan.
19-26.

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30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 29-31

In commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, Air Force
Magazine is posting daily recollections from the six-week war, which expelled
Iraq from occupied Kuwait.

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Radar Sweep

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Snapshot: DOD and COVID-19

Here's a look at how the Defense Department is being impacted by and responding
to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Medical-Grade Masks Required as of Next Week at Air Force Installations in Kaiserslautern

Medical-grade face masks will have to be worn in public facilities on Ramstein
Air Base and other Air Force installations in the Kaiserslautern area starting
next week, the 86th Airlift Wing said Jan. 28.

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Russian Parliament OKs New START Nuclear Treaty Extension

Russian lawmakers on Jan. 27 quickly approved the extension of the last
remaining nuclear Russia-U.S. arms control treaty, a fast-track action that
comes just days before it’s due to expire.

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Russian Missile System Spirited Out of Libya by US

A truck-mounted Russian air defence missile system captured on a Libyan
battlefield was flown intact to a US air base in Germany in a covert mission,
The Times has learned. The operation was ordered amid concerns that the Pantsir
S-1 missile battery, which can easily bring down civilian aircraft, could fall
into the hands of militias or arms smugglers in the war-torn north African
country.

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Biden Admin Pauses Controversial Arms Sales for Review

The State Department is pausing multiple arms sales pushed through by the Trump
administration to "allow incoming leadership an opportunity to review,"
according to a State Department official.

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Biden Seen Likely to Keep Space Force, a Trump Favorite

To the last moments of his presidency, Donald J. Trump trumpeted the Space Force
as a creation for the ages. And while President Joe Biden has quickly undone
other Trump initiatives, the space-faring service seems likely to survive, even
if the new administration pushes it lower on the list of defense priorities.

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OPINION: Are Flat Pentagon Budgets the New Up or the New Down?

“The Biden administration probably will not unveil an outyear spending plan
for the Defense Department until the late spring of 2021 at the earliest, and
more likely it will come out with the fiscal 2023 budget submission in February
2022,” writes Byron Callan, a contributing columnist at the Aviation Week
Network and a director at Capital Alpha Partners in Washington. “The
administration should, however, be commenting on some of the bigger changes as
different reviews and assessments are completed before that budget plan is
released.”

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Military Eyes AI, Cloud Computing in Space in a Decade

Physics keeps the Pentagon from orbiting a computer powerful enough for machine
learning. So they’re building a network in space.

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DIU Scaling Up Commercial Cyber Threat Deception Platform

The innovation group extended an other transaction agreement with cybersecurity
firm CounterCraft with an eye to moving to a production contract in the coming
months.

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Joint All-Domain Awareness

Get a better sense of the drive for greater connectedness between air, space,
cyber, land, cyber, and maritime forces Catch up on all things JADC2 now.

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SECDEF Says Germany Is ‘Highly Valued’ Station for American Troops

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III told Germany’s Defense Minister Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer in his first conversation with her since taking up his new
post that Germany is “highly valued” as a station for American soldiers, the
Defense Ministry said Jan. 28.

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The Guard Isn’t Going Home. Leaders Fear Retention May Suffer

On the morning of Jan. 20, two divisions’ worth of National Guard
troops—around 26,000, according to National Guard Bureau data shared with
Military Times—from 50 states and three territories stood watch in the
nation’s capital for the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Some even rode
the Metro to their posts, helmets on and rifles slung.

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One More Thing...
Play USAF’s E.C.H.O.

The Air Force’s Enhanced Cognitive Human Ops—or E.C.H.O., for short— is a
fun, interactive experience that tests for the cognitive skills that Airmen use
every day.

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