CONTRACT AGGRESSORS USAF Bets on Privatizing Red Air
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Re-Engining the BUFF 38 | Pilot Training Revamp 30 | Adaptable Munitions 46 CONTRACT AGGRESSORS USAF Bets On Privatizing Red Air. 24 Jan/Feb 2019 $8 Published by the Air Force Association GTP_10229_AirForce Magazine Ad_v09.indd 1 1/11/19 2:33 PM STAFF Publisher Larry O. Spencer January / February 2019. Vol. 102, No. 1 Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele Managing Editor Juliette Kelsey Chagnon Editorial Director John A. Tirpak News Editor Amy McCullough Assistant DEPARTMENTS FEATURES SrA. Austin Managing Editor McCullough Chequita Wood 2 Editorial: US 24 Red Air Rising inspects a Needs a Cyber By Amy McCullough B-52 engine at Senior Designer Deterrence Can contracting out the adversary air mission ease Barksdale AFB, La. Dashton Parham Plan the pilot shortage and enhance combat training? An See “Re-Engining Pentagon Editor E ective cyber emerging industry says it can. the B-52,” p. 38. Brian W. Everstine deterrence Digital Platforms requires the will Photo by A1C Sydney 30 The Future of Pilot Training Campbell Editor and capacity By Brian Everstine Jennifer-Leigh to respond to Oprihory cyber attacks Low-cost simulators, new trainers, and Red Flag with an equal or reforms aim to help USAF gear up for future great Production greater blow. power conflicts. Manager Eric Chang Lee 4 Letters Photo Editor 5 Index to 38 Re-Engining the B-52 Mike Tsukamoto Advertisers By John A. Tirpak With the BUFF set to serve through 2050, new 8 Airframes Contributors power plants are essential. 14 Verbatim John T. Correll, Robert S. Dudney, 15 Aperture 43 Saving a Blackbird Jason Healey, Paying a high By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory Jennifer Hlad, Col. price for the Air Matthew Hurley, Force we need. Four Swedish pilots put themselves between a crippled USAF SR-71 and Soviet air-to-air missiles, Marc V. Schanz , 17 Forward potentially thwarting a lethal international incident. Maj. Gen. Lawrence Deployed Stutzreim Strengthining ties in the Indo- 46 Adaptable Munitions: Time for a Revolution Pacific. ADVERTISING: By Maj. Gen. Lawrence Stutzreim, Col. Matthew Kirk Bown 18 World: USAF Hurley, with Marc V. Schanz 703.247.5829 accepts flawed The Mitchell Institute argues for a new generation of [email protected] tanker; Base in weapons that can instantly tailor their e ects to any SUBSCRIBE a Box; Mattis given need. Farewell; and & SAVE more ... ON THE COVER Subscribe to 51 From Cybernetics to Cyberspace Air Force Magazine 23 Faces in the and save big o News By Jason Healy The roots of digital warfare date back to the birth of the cover price, 60 AFA Elected plus get a free National the US Air Force. membership Leaders to the Air Force 61 Airman For 56 U-2 Down Association. Life: AFA By John T. Correll 1-800-727-3337 Chapter News; “We have parts of the plane,” Khrushchev said. “We B-24 crew deals also have the pilot.” The US could no longer deny An A-4 Skyhawk with a nightmare the truth about a lost spy plane. flown by Draken at 16,000 feet. International. See “Red Air Rising,” 64 Namesakes: p. 24. McGuire Photo by Javier Rodríguez Air Force Magazine (ISSN 0730-6784) January/February 2019 (Vol. 102, No. 1) is published monthly, except for two double issues in January/February and July/August, by the Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209-1198. Phone (703) 247-5800. Periodical postage paid at Arlington, Va., and additional mailing o ices. Membership Rate: $50 per year; $35 e-Membership; $125 for three-year membership. Subscription Rate: $50 per year; $29 per year additional for postage to foreign addresses (except Canada and Mexico, which are $10 per year additional). Regular issues $8 each. USAF Almanac issue $18 each. Change of address requires four weeks’ notice. Please include mailing label. POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209-1198. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Trademark registered by Air Force Association. Copyright 2018 by Air Force Association. JANUARY/FEBRUARY AIRFORCEMAG.COM EDITORIAL By Tobias Naegele US Needs a Cyber Deterrence Plan Americans have a love aair with airplanes. We love their power new twists on classic spy techniques and pose potentially serious and grace and marvel at their roar over air shows. We pay far less risks to American economic and national security. attention to rockets and satellites and even less to the invisible and Consider the data breach at the Oice of Personnel Management dark art of cyber. These things are harder to see and understand. in 2014. The hackers got access to millions of records. But what They are every bit as important to the Air Force. As the US worries intelligence insiders most was not what was taken. It was military ponders a future of peer competition, that future can be what might have been left behind that wasn’t there before. expected to meld air, space, and cyber. USAF’s ability to exert power The uproar over Russia’s influence campaigns before and since is predicated on our strengths in those other domains. the 2016 elections provides an inkling of how fear and doubt can Since World War II, it’s been Air Force doctrine that wars are won undermine trust in even the institutions most fundamental to our by taking the fight to the people. Attacking and disabling electric democracy. grids disrupts a society’s ability to function. When societies can’t In this digital age, where computers “in the cloud” help us make function, they are more likely to give up. In both Kuwait and Kosovo, decisions and even find our way home, it’s communications net- this was a key part of the US strategy. works, rather than power, that are now preeminent. We can survive At home, our own sensitivity to power outages is a major national a power outage as long as we can charge our phones in the car. weakness. “Surviving a Catastrophic Power Outage,” a new report Shut down the web, however, and we’re deaf, dumb, and blind. from the President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council, Among our nation’s greatest strengths are our robust, indepen- identifies the problems and oers a series of reforms to strengthen dent financial system and our dynamic, innovative technology the resilience of that grid. sector. Together they have contributed to building the world’s Until that’s done, we can look forward to more events like these: largest economy and among its most eicient. But our overwhelm- ■ A local Ohio blackout in 2003 triggered a chain reaction ing reliance on both is our greatest vulnerability. No surprise then that took out 21 power plants in three minutes, plunging that a recent Council of Foreign Relations’ survey of 500 Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Ottawa, Toronto, “Eective experts said the greatest threat facing the US homeland and other cities into darkness and sparking fears of a cyber is “a highly disruptive cyberattack on US critical infra- terrorist strike. It took two days for most locations to structure and networks.” recover. deterrence It’s not the military’s role to defend every civilian ■ Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico’s aging requires network. The line between military and civilian networks electric grid in 2017; the resulting power failure, which the will and is getting thinner and grayer. The military increasingly took 11 months to fix completely, was later blamed for as relies on commercial satellites, technology, logistics, many as 3,000 deaths over the next six months. capacity to and network services. There are major national security ■ Hurricane Michael flattened the Florida panhandle respond to implications to commercial infrastructure breakdowns. last fall, leveling Tyndall Air Force Base, and causing Air a cyber Yet the United States has been vague about how Force Chief of Sta Gen. David L. Goldfein to equate the attack with it might respond in the event of a major cyber attack. storm with a surprise attack. That’s a good way to think Ambiguity has some advantages. If a rival doesn’t know about these things. an equal how you might act, he might not be willing to take the risk Yet in an increasingly connected world, failure of our or greater to find out. On the other hand, if the rival underestimates digital systems and networks is an even greater risk than blow.” the potential response, the US could find itself mired in power disruption. Today, almost every industrial system, an otherwise avoidable conflict. from water systems and power plants to air-conditioning Cyber warfare is both oensive and defensive. Attack- systems and elevators, is remotely controlled and monitored via ers will continue unrestrained unless they face a credible threat computer software and hardware. Called SCADA, for Supervisory of retaliation. To be credible, however, US cyber warriors must be Control and Data Acquisition, these systems make up what might able to do two things: unambiguously assign blame and deliver an be called the industrial Internet. even more devastating blow in response to any attack. In January, the Wall Street Journal documented in stunning detail Assigning blame in cyber is complicated. While practitioners how Russian hackers sought to penetrate the computer networks exhibit signature moves and patterns, they also work hard to mask of US electric utilities by attacking not the utilities themselves, but activities and their origins. US cyber warriors must get better and contractors and subcontractors. The cyberattack targeted com- faster at attributing attacks, and the national leadership must be panies in 24 states, Canada, and Great Britain using deception to bolder and more willing to take action in response to attacks.