Air Force Magazine
Daily Report for Jan. 23, 2020

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Edited by Amy McCullough with Rachel S. Cohen, Brian W. Everstine and John A. Tirpak

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CSBA: USAF Must Get Bigger, Stealthier, Faster, and More Spread Out
By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force isn’t well-structured to carry out the National Defense
Strategy, and in order to deter a major war, it must add more and stealthier
aircraft, expand its use of unmanned systems, accelerate the development of new
technology, and learn to operate from more dispersed locations, according to a
new report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

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SDA’s 2020 Plans Take Shape
By Rachel S. Cohen

The Space Development Agency in 2020 is embarking on its first full year of work
to put up potentially thousands of satellites that aim to share combat data in
new ways and better protect US interests. After standing up in March 2019,
working through leadership turmoil, and eventually reaching out to industry to
start shaping its design ambitions, SDA boss Derek Tournear said Jan. 21 he
expects the agency will float a full plan this spring for piecing together its
own systems with what other organizations are developing.

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Empowering Disaster Response and Recovery From Space
When a natural disaster or emergency occur, an immediate and seamless response is necessary to
save lives. Operational and situational awareness becomes increasingly important to responders.
If critical infrastructure is down in the disaster zone, then the systems and networks required for
powering the relief efforts are compromised. Ground operations must look to space to solve their
communication needs. Read the full story.
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Iraq Training Mission Makes Strides in the Air, Though Pause Persists
By Brian W. Everstine

The US-led coalition’s air operations may have slowed in the fight against the
Islamic State group, but the US Air Force’s mission to train the Iraqi Air
Force has started to “pay dividends” as the Iraqis take on more strikes on
their own, a top coalition commander said. Much of this training and progress is
on hold, however, as the US has turned its attention to protecting troops from
Iranian threats, rather than training and anti-ISIS operations, following the
Jan. 3 strike on a top Iranian military leader and the resulting ballistic
missile attack on al Asad AB, said USAF Maj. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, deputy
commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

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Eastern Europe MQ-9 Detachment Shifts to Romania
By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force’s MQ-9 presence in Eastern Europe has moved south again, as the
52nd Expeditionary Operations Group Det. 2 begins flying in Romania this month.
The MQ-9s are deployed to Miroslawiec AB, Poland, and this is the second time
they have moved to the 71st Air Base at Campia Turzii in Romania. The Reaper
presence was last in Romania in the summer of 2019 because of construction at
the Polish base, and this time they will remain though late spring. While US Air
Forces in Europe did not detail why the Reapers moved this time, their mission
in Romania is to “support a range of operations on the continent that support
our NATO allies. This includes cold weather operations and participation in
various exercises in the region,” a USAFE spokesperson told Air Force
Magazine.


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Radar Sweep

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Trump Minimizes Severity of Head Injuries in Iran Attacks

President Donald Trump on Jan. 22 minimized the severity of head injuries
sustained by US troops during an Iranian missile strike on an Iraqi air base as
he was pressed on why he’d claimed no troops had been injured in the attack.
“I heard they had headaches and a couple of other things ... and I can report
it is not very serious,” Trump said at a press conference in Davos,
Switzerland, arguing that potential traumatic brain injuries are less severe
than, say, missing limbs.

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Pentagon Gives Conditional OK to Resume Saudi Military Training in US

The Pentagon has given the Navy and other military services conditional approval
to resume training of Saudi Arabian nationals in the US. Operational training,
such as flying and other non-classroom work, for the approximately 850 Saudis at
multiple US bases was suspended on Dec. 10—four days after one Saudi trainee
shot and killed three US Navy service members at Naval Air Station Pensacola in
Florida.

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United States Air Force Plans to "Aim High" Leveraging the Science of Neuroplasticity

Pathwaves, a Miami-based digital therapeutics company, has been awarded a US Air
Force Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract through AFWERX
and the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to advance the development of the
NeuroEmpowerment™ methodology. The Pathwaves NeuroEmpowerment™ platform
will, for the first time, provide the US Air Force with the ability to
objectively quantify their personnel's level of mental function.

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Pentagon Racks up $35 Trillion in Accounting Changes in a Year

The Pentagon made $35 trillion in accounting adjustments last year alone—a
total that’s larger than the entire US economy and underscores the Defense
Department’s continuing difficulty in balancing its books.

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Pentagon Wants to Build One Satellite Per Week

One satellite per week. That’s what the Pentagon wants industry to provide
under its plans to orbit seven new constellations—each with a different
function—by the end of 2020.

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Pentagon’s Number-Two Officer Vows to Fix Software Acquisition ‘Nightmare’

The new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Defense Department
needs to fix its requirements processes—not just its acquisition
procedures—if it’s going to make real progress toward buying and building
software as quickly as Silicon Valley does. And as of now, according to Gen.
John Hyten, the process is a “nightmare across the board.”

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The X Factor of Great Corporate Cultures

When an organization understands, communicates, and celebrates its quiddity,
it’s far better able to drive culture and all that culture impacts—from
recruitment and training to branding, reputation, and beyond. As the nucleus of
values shaping organizational culture and metaphorically bringing it to life,
quiddity then activates the culture’s self-reinforcing loop in which the
celebrations of its history, traditions, and successes further attract and
reinforce the bond with its customers, partners, and employees.

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Viasat to Expand US Air Force's Situational Awareness Skills

Viasat, Inc. recently secured a prime contract from the US Air Force to fortify
the tactical data networking capabilities of warfighters. The
indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, worth a maximum ceiling of $90
million, will enhance situational awareness and mission coordination across
military branches with improved communication system in a multi-domain
battlespace.

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CAP Evaluation Deemed Successful by US Air Force

Over the course of a week, the Air Force simulated a missing aircraft, a boat in
distress, a tsunami on the western shores of the state, and disruption of cell
phone services, all occurring simultaneously and on different islands. The goal
was to assess CAP’s ability to operate a large Incident Command Post, fly
photography and search and rescue missions, perform ground team operations, and
coordinate with multiple agencies such as the Hawaii Emergency Management
Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the US Coast Guard.

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The Pentagon Must Do More to Attract and Keep Good Dentists and Doctors, GAO Finds

The Defense Department needs to do more to track whether its physician and
dentist retention and recruitment programs are working, a government watchdog
report states. The report concludes that the DOD is not "consistently" tracking
what civilians in the same fields earn. And it's not collecting data on
retention bonus acceptance rates or determining how much it costs to train a
replacement when a physician leaves.

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One More Thing...
7 Uniforms the Space Force Should Have Borrowed

On Jan. 17, 2020, the official Space Force Twitter account tweeted a photo of
Gen. John "Jay" Raymond's new operational camouflage pattern working uniform.
Raymond was recently sworn in as commander of Space Force and is its only
current member. Many on Twitter questioned the need to "blend in" in space (as
camouflage uniforms are meant to do). Others asked why the Space Force needs the
expense of new uniforms at all.

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