U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen conduct hoist operations aboard the Landing Craft Utility Fort McHenry at Kadena Air Base, Japan., Nov. 10, 2021. Air Force Airman 1st Class Stephen Pulter
The Air & Space Brief: Spacewar training; Posture review; Inside the airlift; UFO office; And more...
Welcome to the Defense One Air and Space newsletter. Here are our top stories this week:
Wargames for Space Force. Lacking the kind of deploy-and-rebuild schedule that makes room for training—not to mention an easy way to run exercises—the newest service is creating a new force-generation concept and modeling and simulation environments, a top Space Force leader said. Now the service has to figure out just what tactics and scenarios it should train for. D1’s Patrick Tucker has more.
Posture review prioritizes the Pacific. The Pentagon’s 2021 Global Posture Review calls for more rotations and presence in the Indo-Pacific at the cost of military presence in other areas—even as the U.S. watches escalating aggression by Russia against Ukraine and recalibrates how it will counter terror groups and contain Iran in the Middle East. Tara Copp has a bit more.
Inside the Afghan airlift. When the phone rang for Brig. Gen. Mark Weber on Aug. 22, it summoned him to lead the team in charge of moving refugees from Dulles International Airport in Virginia to the eight U.S. military bases serving as safe havens. His experience showed how very far the military has to go in sharing data—and how quickly it can make up the gaps. Read, here.
Sign up to get The Air & Space Brief every Tuesday from Tara Copp, Defense One’s Senior Pentagon Reporter. On this day in 1951, the Air Force minted two aces—one of whom had been a WWII ace as well.
From Defense One
US Needs Indo-Pacific Force ‘Enhancements,’ Global Posture Review Finds // Tara Copp: Few details released from classified review, which arrives amid geopolitical shifts.
Space Force Has a Plan for Training Its Troops. Now It Must Figure Out What They Need to Learn // Patrick Tucker: The newest service can’t train the same way its sisters do. It needs a new simulated environment.
Inside the Data-Driven Operation that Moved Afghan Refugees from Dulles to Safe Havens // Col. Matthew Strohmeyer, Grace Hwang, Lt. Col. Michelle Macander, Erol Yayboke: The main challenge was reconciling and processing disconnected, stove-piped, unavailable, or incorrect data.