Q&A: JCS Vice Roles and Missions Reboot? 48| Pilot Training 44| Cost-Per-E ect Calculus 60 Chairman Gen. John Hyten 14 THE NEW ARCTIC STRATEGY Competition Intensifies in a Critical Region |52 September 2020 $8 Published by the Air Force Association THOSE BORN TO FLY LIVE TO WALK AWAY ACES 5®: Proven and ready Protecting aircrew is our mission. It’s why our ACES 5® ejection seat is the world’s only production seat proven to meet the exacting standards of MIL-HDBK-516C. Innovative technologies and consistent test results make ACES 5 the most advanced protection for your aircrew. Plus, we leverage 40 years of investment to keep your life-cycle costs at their lowest. ACES 5: Fielded and available today. The only ejection seat made in the United States. collinsaerospace.com/aces5 © 2020 Collins Aerospace CA_8338 Aces_5_ProvenReady_AirForceMagazine.indd 1 8/3/20 8:43 AM Client: Collins Aerospace - Missions Systems Ad Title: Aces 5 - Eject - Proven and Ready Filepath: /Volumes/GoogleDrive/Shared drives/Collins Aerospace 2020/_Collins Aerospace Ads/_Mission Systems/ACES 5_Ads/4c Ads/ Eject_Proven and ready/CA_8338 Aces_5_ProvenReady_AirForceMagazine.indd Publication: Air Force Magazine - September Trim: 8.125” x 10.875” • Bleed: 8.375” x 11.125” • Live: 7.375” x 10.125” STAFF Publisher September 2020. Vol. 103, No. 9 Bruce A. Wright Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele Managing Editor Juliette Kelsey Chagnon Editorial Director John A. Tirpak News Editor Amy McCullough Assistant Managing Editor Chequita Wood Senior Designer Dashton Parham Pentagon Editor Brian W. Everstine Master Sgt. Christopher Boitz Sgt. Christopher Master Digital Platforms Editor DEPARTMENTS FEATURES T-38C Talons Jennifer-Leigh begin to break 2 Editorial: Seize 14 Q&A: The Joint Focus Oprihory the High Ground away from an echelon for- Senior Editor By Tobias Naegele Gen. John E. Hyten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Rachel S. Cohen of Sta , speaks with John A. Tirpak about strategic mation during 4 Letters requirements, roles and missions, space, and more. instructor Production pilot training in Manager 6 Index to Southern Texas. Eric Chang Lee Advertisers 44 Reforging Fighter Pilot Training By John A. Tirpak Photo Editor 13 Verbatim Mike Tsukamoto The aim is better pilots and more combat capability. 18 Strategy & Policy: The bonus is speed. The Training Contributors Renaissance Douglas A. Birkey, 48 Time to Rethink Roles and Missions? John T. Correll, 22 Airframes By Rachel S. Cohen David A. Deptula, 30 World: New CSAF, Robert S. Dudney, Some see a need for revisions, but leaders aren’t Jennifer Hlad, CMSAF; DOD there—yet. Alyk Russell Kenlan leaving Germany?; F-15EX basing; 52 Flexing in the Arctic Space Force doctrine revealed; By Amy McCullough Hack-a-Sat; and USAF warms to a new strategy and increased more ... competition in the vital polar region. 43 Faces of the Force ADVERTISING: 56 Combat Proven Kirk Brown 70 Airman for Life Director, Media Improv for Healing By Brian W. Everstine Solutions Veterans ON THE COVER The F-35 isn’t in full production, but it’s proving its 703.247.5829 72 Namesakes: e ectiveness daily. [email protected] Holloman 60 A Better Way to Measure Combat Value SUBSCRIBE & SAVE By USAF Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula (Ret.) and Subscribe to Douglas A. Birkey Air Force Magazine Conventional measures mask the true cost of and save big o operations—cost-per-e ect does not. the cover price, Tech. Sgt. Keele Adam Tech. plus get a free 66 Rise of the Air Corps An F-35A flies over the Alaska Highway membership By John T. Correll en route to its new to the Air Force home at Eielson Air Association. To the Army, its newest branch was both a trial and a Force Base, Alaska. source of strength. 1-800-727-3337 Air Force Magazine (ISSN 0730-6784) September 2020 (Vol. 103, No. 9) 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 2020 by Air Force Association. SEPTEMBER AIRFORCEMAG.COM EDITORIAL By Tobias Naegele Seize the High Ground n the opening scenes of the movie “Gettysburg,” the film adap- tion could conceivably involve manned space planes in the future, tation of the brilliant Civil War novel “Killer Angels,” Union Brig. the near-term and foreseeable reality is that man’s role in space IGen. John Buford gazes across the rolling Southern Pennsyl- will be to manage the domain via remote control, much as we do vania hills and laments the plodding tactics of his commanders. today. While astronauts assigned to NASA man the International Imagining the battle to come as an inevitable failure, he says: Space Station, our Space Force can expect to do its business from “When our people get here, Lee will have the high ground and the familiar confines of our terrestrial atmosphere. there will be the devil to pay.” Of course, some have more ambitious notions of what the Buford did not wait for orders from above. Seizing the high Space Force should be and do. Last winter, when the Air Force ground for the Union, he turned the tables on the Confederates Association hosted Elon Musk at the Air Warfare Symposium, he such that it was the Union, and not Lee, that held the high ground not only silenced the room by declaring “the fighter jet era has and the rocks when the battle began in earnest. Thus it was Lee, passed,” but also opined on the brand-new Space Force. It needs and not the Union, whose forces withered and lost the ensuing “really cool” uniforms, he said, and should cast its gaze outward battle. toward interplanetary travel, rather than back at Earth. The war—and the preeminent place the United States has held Then we have the comedic Netflix series “Space Force,” which in the world ever since—may well have hinged on that decision. presents a new service branch intent on “putting boots on the The quest for the high ground is as old as war itself. A castle on moon.” And this summer, in real life, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) a hill was harder to attack and provided the early warning to spot managed to convince his House colleagues—overwhelmingly from marauders while they were still a long way o. Attacking from on the opposite party—to agree to an amendment to the 2020 defense high oered other advantages, including speed and range, factors authorization bill that would require the Space Force to adopt that remain critical even today. Manned flight—from balloons and Navy ranks. Crenshaw, who was medically retired from the Navy dirigibles to powered flight in and beyond the atmosphere—take as a lieutenant commander, is a combat-decorated Navy SEAL. that concept to its natural conclusions. The appeal of naval ranks, of course, flows from the visions “Spacepower,” the foundational doctrine of the U.S. Space Force, conjured up by science fiction writers in the 1950s and ’60s, the was released in August. In it, the new military branch defines same romantic souls who scripted Captain Kirk to be a cosmic space as “a critical manifestation of the high ground in modern Casanova with a star-crossed femme fatal on every planet. Our warfare”—one might even say the ultimate high ground. Providing 21st century Space Force needs more appropriate role models. a God’s-eye view of the world beneath, legal, permission-free Proponents argue a new rank structure is essential to help the overflight, and the means to move and manage Space Force peel away from its Air Force roots. But information globally at unparalleled speed, space Ignore the nonsense. if that’s so, why cleave to the Navy instead? How is transformational. Seize the high ground. does that advance the cause of an independent Space also is increasingly contested by other Space Force? ambitious powers and crowded by commercial Win the fight. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” and military ventures. It may not be crowded like Raymond is obligated to consider every possibil- Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but as traic increases, it is be- ity and deserves the freedom of maneuver to fashion the Space coming more complex. Commercial operators are fixing to launch Force as a bold and innovative endeavor. He isn’t building just constellations of thousands of satellites, creating a host of new today’s Space Force, but one that can stand a century onward. business opportunities—and potential military targets. If the Space Force does indeed require a new rank structure, it America does not own this high ground outright. The Space should invent one. Force’s objective, according to the doctrine, is to ensure the But, do not be hasty. In an increasingly joint military, are more freedom to operate where, when, and how we wish; to enable the ranks and more potential for confusion advantageous? Might they remainder of the Joint Force with precision, strategic warning, and instead prove a distraction? If the rank insignia remain the same global communications, and the ability to provide—independent for ease of recognition, ought not the names of the ranks remain of the other services—military options in, from, and to space.