US military preparing for new kind of warfare in Nevada desert
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada: US military officers had just finished a mission in the Air Force’s premier exercise to train pilots for air-toair combat, and something had gone wrong: Rank-and-file troops expected to carry out cyberattacks on enemy air defences deviated from their plan without warning commanders and pilots.
US troops carrying out cyber operations are expected to complete specific assignments, known as contracts. Doing so can create windows of time in which US aircraft can attack while facing fewer threats, while deviating from that plan can put pilots at risk in an actual combat operation.
The exchange symbolises some of the challenges for the US military as it shifts its focus to prepare for potential wars against adversaries with advanced weapons. The transition to so-called “multi-domain operations” calls for the Pentagon to prepare not only for wars on land, air and sea, but for newer forms of warfare that incorporate both space and cyberspace.
Just as important, the shift requires new collaborations between different parts of the military, and trust between them. Fighter pilots, for example, must increasingly rely on cyberattacks created by colleagues on the ground to get in and out of enemy airspace safely. Air Force Space Command, meanwhile, recently adopted a new model known as the Space Mission Force in which crews will be reorganised to keep US military satellites safe from potential adversaries.
Multi- domain warfare was incorporated at Red Flag recently to an extent the US military has never done before, Red Flag participants said. The exercise, established in the 1970s after thousands of US aircraft were shot down over Vietnam, has long been considered one of the US military’s premier ways to train pilots for air-to-air combat. This time, however, it integrated space and cyber missions throughout the three-week exercise.
Peter Singer, an author and analyst with the New America Foundation, said the US military is in a position where it must develop doctrine for new kinds of operations, including cyber and space warfare. His 2015 book with August Cole, Ghost Fleet, is fiction, but its exploration of how China and Russia could cripple the US military by cyber and space attacks has been studied in the military over the past year.
“It’s not who has the tech, it’s who has the best doctrine for bringing it all together,” Singer said of cyberwarfare. “We’ve had this capability; we just haven’t had to use it and exercise it much.”
One way that Air Force officials encouraged change at Red Flag was naming Colonel DeAnna Burt – the commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado – as the first space officer to serve as the air expeditionary wing commander of Red Flag. The job is responsible for a variety of missions during the exercise, includ- Captain Brian Goodman checks equipment before a mission during exercise Red Flag on July 21 at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. ing carrying out disciplinary action. Having Burt involved provided the Red Flag staff, heavily made up of fighter pilots, with a new perspective, said Colonel Greg Marzolf, who oversees the exercise as commander of the 414th Combat Training Squadron.
Burt acknowledged having some insecurities ahead of taking the assignment about “how all these pointy- nose fighter guys were going to look at a space operator” being involved. But she said she was quickly accepted, and found them enthusiastic about discussing how “non-kinetics” – space and cyber operations – could be adopted.
More than 100 aircraft were involved in the exercise from July 11-29 at the Nevada Test and Training Range, which spans 8 047km2 in the desert north of Las Vegas. Dozens of fighter jets were launched each night, along with surveillance planes such as the U-2 Dragon Lady and drones such as MQ-1 Predator. Army Special Forces teams were integrated on the ground, and a notional enemy “red team” of US troops that included aircraft and air defense was organised to challenge other participants.
Notably, the F-22 Raptor and the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter were involved. The aircraft are the military’s two premier aircraft for so-called “fifth-generation” combat, in which intelligence is quickly synthesised and space and cyber operations are important.
Also among those at Red Flag was the 527th Space Aggressor Squadron, of Schriever Air Force Base, which was created to train US forces for combat with adversaries capable of using space by using both global positioning system satellites and satellite jamming techniques.
Major Joel Davee, the unit’s assistant director of operations, said there is still a gap in knowledge about what conventional units know about space operations but that exercises like Red Flag help.
“We fear what we do not understand,” he said.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and General David L Goldfein, the service’s top officer, visited Nellis Air Force Base on July 27 and said they watched with interest in how much the exercise has evolved in the last few years.
Goldfein, a fighter pilot, said it’s important to remember that the point of the exercise “is actually not for everything to go really well” – it’s for the red team to challenge others and force improvement.
“We want to put the most complex challenge on these warriors as we can, and force them to not only think through how they mission plan, but mission plan on the fly when things don’t go the way they planned,” he said. “When life gets in the way, and the fog of war inserts itself – as it always does.” – Washington Post
Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.