Personnel shortages may force US Air Force pilots to fly non-fighters

U.S. Air Force pilots graduating from training courses with the T-38 Talon may be required to fly non-fighter or bomber aircraft as a result of pilot shortages, according to a new Air Force policy.

The challenges in pilot inventory were outlined in an August service memo reviewed by Defense News and confirmed by an Air Force official.

Described in the document as a “significant but necessary policy change,” the move shifts the traditional assignment flow for T-38 pilots, who now may be matched to fly non-fighters or bombers.

“We are 1,848 pilots short, with 1,142 of those being fighter pilots,” the memo states. “While we would prefer to send every qualified T-38 graduate to a fighter [Formal Training Unit], circumstances dictate that we utilize available capacity to maximize pilot production. In the near term, in addition to traditional fighter/bomber assignments, T-38 graduates will be matched to additional T-6 [First Assignment Instructor Pilot] assignments and opted for non-fighter/bomber aircraft.”

Due to personnel challenges, some breaks between pilot training and assignment to a formal training unit have exceeded one year, the memo adds.

Brig. Gen. Travolis Simmons, the director of training and readiness and deputy chief of staff for operations with Headquarters Air Force, told Military Times that the delayed starts at the fighter FTUs are “due to a combination of sustainment and manpower challenges.”

Despite recruitment challenges for the service last fiscal year, the Air Force is working to rebound through attracting new talent.

For now, the document describes how T-38 students will prioritize all aircraft, not just fighters and bombers, on their “dream sheets” to ensure an accommodation of preferences. It also outlines that the students may volunteer for non-fighter and bomber opportunities.

“The Air Force has always assigned aircraft based on Air Force needs, platform availability, student preference and student class ranking,” Simmons said. “Even with the recent policy shift, those core tenets remain the same.”

He added that while the policy change is meant to optimize available resources, as capacity and needs evolve, pilots affected by the policy change may have the option to “voluntarily crossflow to fighter/bomber aircraft.”

T-38 Talon engine repair woes could slow pilot training for months

The Air Force memo also notes the service intends to return to a regular assignment flow as quickly as possible.

The final pilot production numbers for fiscal year 2024 will not be available for release until later in the calendar year, Simmons said.

US Air Force plans to bed down 25 F-35s in FY26, report says

The U.S. Air Force plans to bed down 25 F-35As in fiscal 2026, according to a recent Defense Department report outlining how the service plans to field an inventory of nearly 700 of the aircraft by the end of the decade.

The Selected Acquisition Report, effective as of Dec. 31, 2023, was cleared for public release in August. It outlines the number of fighters the service intends to field each year through fiscal 2029, with expected losses of between two to four F-35As per year, for a total inventory of 664 aircraft.

An Air Force official told Air & Space Forces Magazine, which first reported on the report, that the figures should not be considered as an exact reflection of planned Air Force budget requests, but they relate to “a number of factors” impacting how fast aircraft can be purchased, delivered and absorbed into existing units and fielded to new locations. The official also said there have been adjustments to the program since late 2023 when the report became effective, which were not captured in the report.

The Pentagon’s plan is for the fleet of F-35s, including the F-35B variant for the U.S. Marine Corps and the F-35C variant for the U.S. Navy, to replace the various services’ legacy fleets and complement their other aircraft.

F-35s to cost $2 trillion as Pentagon plans longer use, says watchdog

For fiscal 2026, the report outlines a plan to bed down 16 F-35Bs and 20 F-35Cs, with the services reaching an inventory of 245 and 219 of those respective aircraft by fiscal 2029. Expected losses for the Marine Corps and Navy fleets range from zero to two per year, about half of what the Air Force anticipates.

Additionally, the report describes a procurement plan for the F-35As, with an intention to buy 42 in both fiscal 2025 and 2026, 47 in fiscal 2027 and 2028 and then 48 per year through fiscal 2048. Then, in fiscal 2049, it plans to buy 34, bringing the total number of aircraft acquired since 2007 to 1,763.

The Air Force’s 2025 budget request also outlines the service’s ask for 42 F-35As, a procurement document shows.

The Pentagon cleared the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for full-rate production earlier this year, Defense News previously reported.

Air Force’s ChatGPT-like AI pilot draws 80K users in initial months

Since the Air Force and Space Force launched their first generative AI tool in June, more than 80,000 airmen and guardians have experimented with the system, according to the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The lab told Defense News this week that the early adopters come from a range of career fields and have used the tool for variety of tasks — from content creation to coding.

Dubbed the Non-classified Internet Protocol Generative Pre-training Transformer, or NIPRGPT, the services are using the system to better understand how AI could improve information access and to get a sense of whether there’s demand for the capability within its workforce.

“The information we gain from this research initiative will help us to understand demand, and to identify areas in which AI can give airmen and guardians time back on mission,” the lab, known as AFRL for short, said in an email. “This will in turn enable us to better prioritize feature updates and security considerations as we scale enterprise capabilities related to generative AI in the future.”

The military services have been exploring how they might use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to make daily tasks like finding files and answering questions more efficient. The Navy in 2023 rolled out a conversational AI program called “Amelia” that sailors could use to troubleshoot problems or provide tech support. The Army started experimenting with the Ask Sage generative AI platform earlier this year and announced this week that it’s integrated the system into operations.

Alexis Bonnell, AFRL’s chief information officer and director of digital capabilities, told reporters in July that that the high usage rates for NIPRGPT confirm that there’s demand for generative AI tools within the Air Force and Space Force workforce.

However, the way service members are using the platform is even more telling, she said. Rather than simply using NIPRGPT to ask a question for find a document, most users have used a framework called RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation, to individualize the tool for their specific roles.

“What it signals to me is that people can now be more positively entrepreneurial and they don’t have to wait for a dashboard to be developed or a major system upgrade,” Bonnell said. “In some cases, they’re able to just bring in the knowledge they have a relationship with.”

The pilot has also helped the services start to shape an acquisition strategy for the capability. AFRL developed NIPRGPT using publicly available AI models and hasn’t committed to a particular approach or vendor as it builds on that baseline. As the pilot moves forward, the lab will work with commercial vendors to test and integrate their tools and determine whether they have utility.

Bonnell said that as AFRL continues to assess usage trends, it will get a sense of what features airmen and guardians want and what those tools might be worth to them.

“The ability to actually look at our actual use and inform our actual acquisition and be in a different position of evidence-based insight at the negotiating table with commercial, I think, is going to be really important,” she said. “So when we look at this rich horizon of commercial tools, we can be much more evidence-based, informed purchases versus throwing some AI at it.”

Anduril unveils modular, high-production Barracuda cruise missiles

Defense tech firm Anduril Industries on Thursday unveiled a new line of autonomous, air-breathing cruise missiles that the company says will be able to be easily upgraded and produced in large numbers to bolster the military’s arsenal.

The three versions of the subsonic Barracuda cruise missile — dubbed the Barracuda-100, -250 and -500 — are built using common subsystems that can be easily swapped in and out as new technologies are developed or threats emerge, Anduril said, which makes them highly adaptable. They will be able to conduct direct, stand-off or stand-in strikes, the company said.

Barracuda’s modularity will also make it attractive to international customers, said Chris Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer.

“You can take it apart like Lego blocks,” Brose told reporters in a Wednesday call. “It makes it a lot easier to work through and navigate defense export issues and collaboration with allies.”

Diem Salmon, vice president for air dominance and strike at Anduril, told reporters Barracuda’s open-architecture subsystem structure will allow them to cost about 30% less than other similar missiles.

“Rather than designing bespoke capabilities for each single weapon system that you’re trying to put out there, how do we actually make this simpler, and how to we actually design out the hard parts?” Salmon said.

Anduril also created a “hyperscale production” strategy for Barracuda based on a simple design with fewer parts that uses commercial components and requires no more than 10 tools to assemble, the company said. Besides bringing down costs, Salmon said, Anduril’s approach to Barracuda will allow the company to scale production up or down as needed.

All versions of the Barracuda would be able to fly at speeds of up to 500 knots, Anduril said. The smallest version, the Barracuda-100, would have a range of up to 85 miles when launched in the air and carry a payload of up to 35 pounds. It could be launched from the ground, from the tail of a C-130 mobility aircraft or from the rails of AH-64 Apache or AH-1Z Viper helicopters.

The Barracuda-250 would be able to fly about 200 nautical miles when air-launched, though its payload capacity would be the same as the 100. It could be launched from the internal weapons bay of F-35 fighters or bombers, and externally from F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-18E/F Super Hornets.

The Barracuda-500 could have a range of more than 500 nautical miles, carry more than 100 pounds of payload and loiter for more than two hours, the company said. Besides being launched externally from the F-15E, F-16, and F-18E/F, Anduril said, it could be launched as a palletized munition from the C-17 and C-130.

Anduril also said Barracuda missiles are highly maneuverable and able to withstand up to 5 G-forces.

Barracuda’s autonomous capabilities will allow it to fly alongside other Barracudas or aircraft and collaborate with them, according to Brose. That could include multiple Barracudas providing different capabilities in a single mission, with some detecting targets, others acting as decoys or providing countermeasures, and still others carrying out strikes.

“That package can go deliver the mission effect that you want, without having to bundle all of that into one air vehicle, and then radically drive up the cost per round of every single vehicle,” Brose said.

Anduril is testing Barracuda as part of the Air Force Armament Directorate and Defense Innovation Unit’s Enterprise Test Vehicle project, according to Brose, among other testing programs he declined to specify. ETV seeks to test prototypes of a modular drone to test payloads, sensors and other technology and be produced affordably at high rates.

All three versions have conducted flight tests, Salmon said. Anduril is also focusing on testing its subsystems, particularly its flight software, she said, to “mak(e) sure we’re wringing out all the kinks there.”

How the Air Force averted a major flaw in its drone wingmen approach

Whatever the next chapter of U.S. air power will look like, there will be drones — and lots of them — accompanying manned fighters into battle.

But as Air Force leaders translated their vision into an acquisition strategy, a novel meeting of the minds — at least by Defense Department standards — may have saved the service from a major miscalculation: A new cohort of so-called collaborative combat aircraft, as originally envisioned, wouldn’t be able to fly far enough to be effective in combat, which would have been a serious problem in the Pacific theater.

That’s according to acquisition chief Andrew Hunter, who spoke about the episode anecdotally to stress how the Air Force had changed its acquisition practices by soliciting early input from stakeholders who were previously consulted only later in the process.

Key to catching the range shortcoming, he said in a July interview, was the unique approach the Air Force took to buying the autonomous drone wingmen known as CCAs. The service brought operators from Air Combat Command into the room alongside acquisition experts, who would normally have taken the lead on a major procurement like this.

“We had … a lot of discussion about range to understand operationally, what was meaningful and what was going to be effective,” said Hunter, the service’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.

With ACC operators’ insights, he said, the Air Force was able to push contractors to find the “sweet spot” of enough range, at a reasonable price and on the right timeline.

That approach to acquisition is a hallmark of the Air Force’s operational imperative effort, Hunter said, and could change how the service procures systems in the future.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall rolled out his wide-ranging, seven-pronged operational imperative plan in March 2022, seeking to transform everything from how the Air Force deploys and sets up bases in war zones to procuring advanced aircraft — including CCAs, the Next Generation Air Dominance future fighter and the B-21 Raider stealth bomber — and finding better ways to track and target enemy forces.

With the Biden administration’s term nearing the finish line, Kendall’s operational imperative transformations could prove to be his lasting legacy on the Air Force.

And such modifications are already guiding other changes to the force. In a Sept. 4 panel at the Defense News conference, Hunter said the operational imperatives were the “genesis” of a broader restructuring of the Air Force, called the reoptimization for great power competition, that was unveiled earlier this year.

Along the way, the operational imperative effort also prompted the Air Force to rethink how it does business and procures new aircraft and other systems, in particular by bringing the operational and acquisition communities together.

From the start, Hunter said, each team working on an operational imperative effort was co-led by an acquisition expert and an operational expert, so each perspective was equally balanced. The systems eventually developed will be used by the Air Force’s operators, so involving them each step of the way was logical, he added.

The rapidly moving acquisition process involves so many decisions — everything from choices on designs, contracts, schedules and how systems will be used — that there’s no time to waste on creating systems that aren’t immensely useful.

“It’s not one of those cases where we get a requirement, and then we in the acquisition community run off and do our thing, and then we come back at the end and say [to operators], ‘Here it is, hope you like it,’” Hunter said. “If they don’t scratch the operational itch, then we’ve not succeeded.”

The time has come, Hunter added, to move away from the lengthy, traditional model in recent decades of sending requests for proposal to a limited number of major firms and only picking one. Instead, the Air Force wants to move to a “next-generation” acquisition model that continually works with a range of industry partners and iterates multiple designs over time.

The Air Force’s CCA program is the most prominent example of this approach. The service in April announced it had selected Anduril and General Atomics for the first “increment” of the drones. And a second increment is on its way in fiscal 2025 — one that could produce autonomous drones dramatically different from the first batch.

“Do not assume, and it may not be, just an evolution of increment one,” Hunter said Sept. 4. “It could be an entirely different set of missions; it could be an entirely different kind of an aircraft.”

Chasing threats

As the service works on operational improvements, threats faced by the United States continue to evolve. China, in particular, is focused on strengthening its own military for a possible invasion of Taiwan — and is doing so “incredibly quickly,” Hunter said.

“The threat’s not sitting still,” Kendall said in a June interview with Defense News at the Pentagon. “It’s getting worse, and it’s … very creative.”

So, the Air Force adjusted its plans, supplementing its modernizing effort with other “operational enablers” that cut across multiple areas. The service also needed to improve capabilities, especially through greater munitions, better electronic warfare and mobility — like an envisioned future stealthy tanker, dubbed NGAS, for its next-generation aerial refueling system.

And the Air Force changed course on Next-Generation Air Dominance, a future fighter family of systems expected to replace the F-22. The price tag for each NGAD, as originally conceived, would likely have been about three times the cost of an F-35, Kendall said. The NGAD program is now on hold while the Air Force reconsiders its design, and it is unclear when the service will award a contract.

The imperatives were built around a “focus on operational problems we need to solve,” Kendall said. “What are the things we need to figure out to make sure we’re competitive and stay ahead of other threats?”

Kendall said the Air Force is making progress on these imperatives, though he tempered his comments by noting that funding limitations and shortfalls in cybersecurity and other technology have kept the effort from moving as quickly as he hoped.

“I’m always impatient,” Kendall said. “I want to go faster to get militarily meaningful quantities out into the force that make a difference operationally.”

When Kendall announced his operational imperative plan, work was already well under way on the 2023 budget proposal. This meant the first time the Air Force could request funding for new operational imperative efforts was in the 2024 budget cycle.

But Congress threw the Pentagon a curveball. Disputes on Capitol Hill held up the military’s 2024 spending bill for months, and the fiscal year was already half over when lawmakers finally passed it.

While the 2024 budget delay hindered much of the operational imperative effort, Hunter said, some elements — such as the command, control, communications and battle management, or C3BM, effort — were already under way or had existing funding to get going.

The Air Force was able to move quickly to field C3BM capabilities, such as the cloud-based command and control effort that knit together several different air defense data sources to better defend the homeland. Hunter said that was able to be fielded rapidly over the last two-plus years or so, and has been successful.

And because the program to develop CCAs was already under way as part of NGAD and had “significant” funding, the Air Force was also able to keep it rolling despite the 2024 budget delay, Hunter said.

But as budgets get tighter, it remains to be seen whether the OI project will receive the funding it needs.

A lasting impact?

The Air Force’s desired funding for operational imperative efforts grew from about $5 billion in 2024 — once the budget was passed — to $6 billion in the 2025 budget request.

Kendall said he’s hoping to maintain full funding in 2026, but expects tight budgets to force the service to make “difficult choices,” including whether the OIs will get the funding he wants.

The growth of additive manufacturing, and technology advancements making it possible to conduct distributed manufacturing for high-end military capabilities, are also helping the Air Force create its new procurement model, Hunter said.

“You can scale more rapidly,” he said. “You can maybe work more intimately with partners and allies … which is definitely important to our strategy of integrated deterrence. You can do complex designs more affordably. These approaches are very consistent with rapidly adopting those technologies into our production and design processes.”

Hunter feels strongly that this approach to procurement — with tighter cooperation between acquisition experts, industry and operators and more frequent iterations to evolve designs — will one day become standard for the Air Force, and perhaps other services.

“This is the way to do it, now and in the immediate future,” Hunter said. “I don’t see a date where it will become less relevant.”

And it’s not an entirely new approach, he said, but it is a habit the Air Force had gotten out. He compared this strategy to that of the World War II and post-war eras — when aviation technology transformed by leaps and bounds — as opposed to the late-Cold War era of the 1980s and 1990s, during which the pace of advancements slowed.

“Change was happening so fast” during WWII, Hunter said. “And you see … how quickly we were able to develop rockets and missiles in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The pace of change and progress was so fast that it drove us towards these more tight-knit relationships among experts.

“It’s not unprecedented, but I definitely think it’s a little bit of a ‘back to the future’ scenario of behaving a little more like we did in those earlier periods.”

Massive Boeing machinist strike hits KC-46 tanker production

The massive strike by tens of thousands of Boeing machinists in Washington state will affect the company’s work on the KC-46 Pegasus refueling tanker, the company’s chief financial officer Brian West said Friday.

West’s comments to the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference came hours after more than 30,000 union members voted overwhelmingly to reject a contract and go on strike.

“The tanker program is going to be impacted by the (Boeing Commercial Airplanes) factory disruption, and now work stoppage,” West said. “That is going to flow through the tanker rates, which is going to be more cost pressure.”

The extent to which KC-46 production might be impacted was not immediately clear, nor was how the strike could impact other Boeing defense programs, such as the U.S. Navy’s P-8 Poseidon. Boeing builds the KC-46 on its 767 line in Everett, Washington, and the 737-derived P-8 in Renton, Washington.

Further statements from Boeing and the Defense Department on the strike’s defense program ramifications were not immediately available.

Boeing management and leaders of the International Association of Machinists districts 751 and W24 reached a tentative agreement on a deal for 33,000 union members that would include a 25% wage increase over the four-year life of the contract.

Union leaders this week told members that while the contract did not deliver everything they sought, it would be “the best contract negotiated in our history” and recommended accepting the deal.

“We have achieved everything we could in bargaining, short of a strike,” District 751 president Jon Holden said in a Monday message to union members.

But that deal fell short of the 40% increase the union originally sought, angering rank-and-file members. On Thursday — the final day of the old contract — more than 94% of union members voted to reject the contract and 96% voted to go on strike. Union members are now picketing Boeing facilities in Washington.

West said the company was “disappointed” by union members’ decision to reject a contract and go on strike.

“Initially, we were pretty pleased,” West said. “We had an unprecedented temporary agreement that was unanimously endorsed by union leadership. Over the last few days, it became loud and clear with our union members that that offer didn’t meet the mark. So there was a disconnect.”

Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s new chief executive, is now speaking directly with workers to hear their concerns and figure out how to find an acceptable agreement, according to West.

A lengthy strike will hurt Boeing’s production, deliveries and operations and jeopardize its ability to recover from its many woes, West said. Those troubles most notably include quality and safety problems with its Max series of airliners.

In July, Boeing pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States in connection with the crashes of two 737 Max aircraft. That followed a January incident in which the door plug of another 737 Max blew out in flight.

If the machinists’ strike is not resolved quickly, it could present further dangers for Boeing and its defense sector, which have already weathered one blow after another.

Fitch Ratings, one of the top international credit rating agencies, said Friday that Boeing “has limited headroom for a strike.” If the strike lasts a week or two, Fitch said, the company’s investment-grade credit rating is not likely to change.

But a longer strike, Fitch said, could seriously affect Boeing’s operations and financial outlook and increase the risk of a downgrade.

West said he is confident Boeing can balance its finances and debt and keep its credit rating investment-grade.

However, Boeing Defense, Space and Security is “still in recovery mode” and is likely to lose money in the third quarter, West said. These losses will in part be caused by cost pressures in Boeing’s fighter sector, as it ramps up production of the F-15EX Eagle II fighter and winds down work on the F-18 Hornet, according to West.

“Development hurdles” on the T-7 Red Hawk and MQ-25 Stingray programs, which are fixed-price contracts leaving Boeing on the hook for cost overruns, have also driven up costs, West said.

The U.S. Air Force awarded Boeing a $2.3 billion contract in November 2023 to build 15 more KC-46s, bringing the total number of Pegasus tankers on contract to 153. But the company has also taken significant losses on the program’s fixed-price contract, with the cost overruns topping $7 billion.

US clears F-35 sale to Romania, bolstering NATO’s eastern flank

The U.S. State Department on Friday announced it has approved the sale of 32 F-35A Joint Strike Fighters to Romania in a deal worth roughly $7.2 billion.

Romania’s deal for the Lockheed Martin-made F-35s will also include F135 engines made by Pratt & Whitney for each jet and a spare engine.

The sale would provide Romania, a NATO member, its first two squadrons of F-35s, and the country wants to later buy 16 more jets to make up a third squadron. If the deal is finalized, it could make Romania the third Eastern European country to fly the F-35, in addition to Poland and the Czech Republic.

Romania said in September 2023 that it expected to receive its first F-35s in 2030. Romania’s planned purchases could make it NATO’s largest F-35 operator on the eastern flank at a time when Russian aggression in Ukraine has worried allies.

The proposed sale would “improve Romania’s capability to meet current and future threats by further equipping it to conduct self-defense and regional security missions while enhancing interoperability with the United States and other NATO members,” the State Department said. Improving this NATO ally’s security would support the U.S.’s foreign policy and national security goals, it said.

The purchase would also provide logistics and maintenance support, navigation, communications and cryptographic equipment, ammunition and weapons, training for pilots and other personnel, and simulators. Lockheed primarily makes F-35s at its Fort Worth, Texas, facility.

The State Department also cleared a $4.1 billion deal for Japan to buy up to nine KC-46A Pegasus refueling tankers from Boeing.

America’s future advantage depends on quick adoption of advanced tech

After more than two years of conflict in Ukraine, it is obvious how lower-cost, more easily producible, advanced technologies — notably unmanned systems — are giving the Ukrainian military an asymmetric advantage against a much larger and more heavily armed foe.

While many aspects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resemble World War I — trenches, barbed wires, heavy exchanges of artillery — the innovative use of drones has been game-changing. Unmanned systems are altering the character of warfare, and the ongoing integration of AI and robotics will further accelerate this dramatic shift. It is why these were my top modernization objectives during my tenure as Army secretary and secretary of defense.

The potency of unmanned systems is most pronounced when it comes to small aerial drones — essentially robots — that are used today to conduct the same tasks that soldiers performed in the past: reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting and direct attack. But they do it far more efficiently and accurately. For instance, when I was a platoon leader decades ago, it typically took a couple infantrymen to destroy a tank at a max range of 3,750 meters. Today, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can do the same at far greater distances, with better success, and at much less cost.

To date, Ukraine has destroyed over 10,000 Russian vehicles, nearly one-third of which are tanks. Many of these were killed by UAVs. Ukraine has also had great success using unmanned surface vehicles to sink or damage a number of Russian ships in the Black Sea.

The introduction of drone swarms — think of dozens or hundreds of UAVs being employed simultaneously — will make the battlefield more lethal than ever before. From a production perspective, generating such a number is not an arduous task. At a gathering this summer of the Aspen Strategy Group that focused on AI, I co-led a panel discussion where one former U.S. official reported that Kyiv is acquiring well over 50,000 drones a month. The speed and cost at which the Ukrainians can do this compared to the United States is shocking.

As important, because the software on these drones is easily modified, Ukraine’s military can keep up with the changing threats and tactics of the modern battlefield. This is something many of our existing platforms, which are defined — and usually trapped in time — by their hardware, often cannot do. The good news is that this can be remedied with more investment in American innovation and process changes.

AI is also revolutionizing a wide range of administrative and logistical functions far removed from the front lines. It will do what AI does best: improve the speed, accuracy, cost and quality of decision-making. Artificial Intelligence can be used for preventive maintenance to reduce the likelihood of equipment breaking down during the fight; it can ensure the right supplies get to the right place at the right time; it can improve talent management in the force; transform supply chain risk management in the defense industrial base; and the use of large language models can hyperpower military staffs. This is the future for a broad range of ordinary military tasks, in addition to enhancing our warfighters’ effectiveness and survivability on the battlefield.

All this demands that DOD accelerate its across-the-board adoption of AI and advancement of robotics and autonomy. It is an asymmetric advantage the U.S. must master first and retain preeminence over. This means investing far more in these technologies, adopting commercial standards and processes as much as possible, capturing all the department’s data in a central repository, prototyping and testing far more aggressively and showing a willingness to deploy needed systems even when one’s confidence level is less than 100%. At the same time, the Pentagon must continue to do these things responsibly, beginning with the ethical principles for AI that I established in February 2020.

As the war in Ukraine rages on, we must heed the lessons from it and do everything in our power to ensure our military has the advanced AI, robotics and autonomy tools it needs to fight — and win — the battles of tomorrow. Doing so, and with a far greater sense of urgency, will serve us incredibly well in any future conflict; especially if we must face off against our greatest strategic threat today — a People’s Republic of China — with the world’s largest and most concentrated armed forces.

Dr. Mark T. Esper was the 27th secretary of defense and author of the New York Times bestseller, “A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times.” He is also a partner and board member in the AI venture firm Red Cell Partners.

US-Russia battle for influence plays out in Central African Republic

BANGUI, Central African Republic — Hours after Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled against his country’s top military leaders, his private army’s biggest client in Africa panicked, turning for help to his foe in the West.

Officials from Central African Republic, where some 1,500 of Prigozhin’s shadowy Wagner Group mercenaries were stationed, wrote a letter that day, requesting to “rapidly” arrange a meeting with a private U.S. security firm to discuss collaboration.

Dated June 23, 2023, the day Prigozhin launched the armed rebellion, the letter sparked a series of private meetings, culminating in a deal with the central African nation and Bancroft Global Development. That sparked backlash from Russian mercenaries, according to a dozen diplomats, locals and analysts.

US quietly reopens talks with Chad amid challenges in Africa posture

The tensions in Central African Republic are a window into a larger battle playing out across the continent as Moscow and Washington vie for influence.

The Russian mercenaries — using success in staving off rebels in this impoverished nation as a model for expansion — have long been accused by locals and rights groups of stripping natural resources such as minerals and timber and are linked to the torture and death of civilians. In the wake of Prigozhin’s rebellion and suspicious death in a plane crash, the Russians are recalibrating their Africa operations. The United States, which has been largely disengaged from the region for years, is attempting to maintain a presence and stymie Russian gains as it pushes African countries to distance themselves from the mercenaries.

U.S. officials blame Russia for anti-American sentiment in the region and say they’re trying to shift the narrative.

“If the U.S. can’t regain a foothold, it could give Russia greater economic and political leverage,” said Samuel Ramani of the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank. “If Russia loses Central African Republic, its flagship model on the continent, there could be a domino effect in other countries.”

Russia’s influence

In recent years, Russia has emerged as the security partner of choice for a growing number of governments in the region, displacing traditional allies such as France and the U.S.

Moscow aggressively expanded its military cooperation by using mercenaries like Wagner, who have operated in at least half a dozen countries since around 2017. They’re tasked with protecting African leaders and in some cases helping fight rebels and extremists.

They’re also plagued by their human rights record. Two years ago in Mali, Wagner and the army were accused of executing about 300 men — some suspected of being Islamist extremists, but most civilians — in what Human Rights Watch called the worst single atrocity reported in the country’s decade-long armed conflict. And in Central African Republic, mercenaries train the army on torture tactics, including how to cut hands, remove nails, throw fuel and burn people alive, according to watchdog The Sentry.

A soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal confirmed torture tactics and told The Associated Press he saw mercenaries put a fellow soldier into a sweltering container as punishment. He said people could stay locked in containers for three weeks, with many dying inside.

Central African Republic was one of the first places the mercenaries entered. The country has been in conflict since 2013, when predominantly Muslim rebels seized power and forced the president from office. Six of the 14 armed groups that signed a 2019 peace deal later left the agreement. Locals and the government credited Wagner with fighting back rebels who tried to overtake Bangui, the capital, in 2021. The Russians soon expanded to Burkina Faso and Niger, and have ambitions for further growth.

Russia is refurbishing a military base some 50 miles from Bangui. Alexander Bikantov, Russia’s ambassador to Central African Republic, said the base will improve the country’s security.

Fidele Gouandjika, adviser to President Faustin-Archange Touadera, said the base aims to have 10,000 fighters by 2030 to engage with more African nations.

Some countries see Russia’s influence as a threat to their own, but conflict analysts say weakening it will be challenging if they won’t offer a similar force to pursue armed groups.

Wagner is steeped in Central African Republic’s security system, and experts say that will likely prevent Touadera from easily diversifying security partners.

Touadera’s office didn’t reply to written requests for comment for this story. His adviser to the country’s spy agency declined to be interviewed.

Pressure from the United States

The U.S. had been pushing Central African Republic to find an alternative to Wagner for years. A December 2022 private meeting sought ways to improve security without the mercenaries but yielded little tangible progress, according to a U.S. official who is familiar with the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity due to the privacy of ongoing discussions.

“We never really got past the confidence-building steps,” he said. “Steps on how XYZ would replace Wagner were abstract, and the door remains open.”

The more assertive U.S. approach came as it faced new setbacks and tried to rework agreements in the region. Its troops left Chad and Niger, where they were no longer welcome.

Still, the State Department said in a statement early this year that it wasn’t involved in the decision to establish Bancroft Global Development’s presence in Central African Republic.

But Washington could deny such contracts if it wanted, said Sean McFate, a former contractor in Africa and author of “The New Rules of War.”

The U.S. has used private military companies to reduce American “boots on the ground” in Africa, McFate said, and companies like Bancroft have to play by Washington’s rules if they want future government work.

In response to AP questions, the U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it uses private contractors in Africa to help countries operate more effectively, with U.S. government oversight to ensure accountability. The official said the State Department has overseen Bancroft’s work in Somalia but not Central African Republic or elsewhere.

Bancroft’s background

Washington-based Bancroft is a nonprofit working in nine countries — five of them in Africa. Its longest-standing presence is in Somalia, where it’s operated for more than 15 years, in part training troops to fight the militant group al-Shabab.

Bancroft’s involvement in Central African Republic has been shrouded in secrecy since signs emerged of its presence last fall.

During an AP visit months later, rumors swirled about Bancroft’s activities, fueling speculation the U.S was bringing its own Wagner to oust Russia.

But according to Bancroft founder Michael Stock, the group entered at Bangui’s behest.

“Touadera felt his Russian partners were underperforming and distracted, focused too much on other lines of effort ranging from breweries to cultural centers, rather than confronting the rebels,” Stock told AP in his first interview since Bancroft began operating there.

Touadera thought diversifying partners would prompt Russia to get in line and give the Americans what they wanted, Stock said.

Stock received the letter from the presidency within a day of Prigozhin’s mutiny, and the two signed a deal in September, he said.

Fewer than 30 Bancroft personnel work there, Stock said, helping Central African Republic with intelligence systems, interagency cooperation and law enforcement.

Bancroft has invested some $1.4 million there, Stock said.

Much of Bancroft’s overall funding has come from U.S. and United Nations grants. From 2018 to 2020, it received more than $43 million from the U.S., according to audits required as part of tax forms.

Amal Ali, former U.S. intelligence analyst, is among critics who say that despite its yearslong presence in Somalia, Bancroft hasn’t contributed to any real eradication of terrorism.

Stock dismissed such comments as uninformed and said the Somali and U.S. governments “agree Bancroft has done a great deal to damaging illegal armed groups and developing the capacity of the government to perform its national defense functions professionally.”

Backlash on the ground

Rights groups say a lack of transparency about Bancroft’s operations has fostered an atmosphere of distrust in a country already rampant with armed actors. Wagner, a U.N. peacekeeping mission and Rwandan troops are all on the ground to try to quell violence.

“Operating in a vague and nontransparent way in the Central African Republic only leads to suspicion,” said Lewis Mudge, of Human Rights Watch.

Stock defended Bancroft’s work and policies. “It is perfectly normal for a government not to publicize how it is defending the people and the state,” he told AP.

Last fall, as reports of possible collaboration with Bancroft emerged, Stock said he positioned a staff member at a hotel in Bangui to wait for Russia’s reaction.

“We expected Russia to freak out, so for our lone staff member in Bangui we chose a Russian speaker, who was tasked to do nothing but sit in the hotel garden reading a book all day, waiting for Russians to show whether they wanted to be cooperative, hostile, or ignore us,” Stock said.

Stock said that weeks later, in January, the employee was detained and questioned for hours by Russian forces and released only when Touadera stepped in.

Officials in both Central African Republic and Russia didn’t respond to requests for comment on any such incident. Bikantov, Russia’s ambassador to Central African Republic, has said Bancroft’s presence had no effect on cooperation with Russia’s military.

In the following months, aggression toward Americans and U.S. entities continued. Several American citizens were detained and had their passports confiscated, a diplomat who dealt with their cases said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t allowed to speak to reporters. Rare anti-American protests erupted outside the U.S. embassy in Bangui, and local youths formed the Committee to Investigate U.S. Activities to monitor Bancroft’s movements.

Gouandjika, the presidential adviser, said the government has no problem with Americans and those denied entry lacked proper paperwork.

Unclear future

As the U.S. and Russia jockey for power, African governments say they want to make their own choices.

Central African Republic officials approached Bancroft, which shows that these governments haven’t become Russian puppets, said Jack Margolin, an expert on private military companies.

But, he added, Russia’s reaction to Bancroft could hurt Moscow’s standing with other nations.

After Prigozhin’s death, Russia moved quickly to take control of Wagner’s assets, and the defense ministry told countries where Wagner operated that it would take over. The country and its military intelligence arm have taken a more direct role in Africa operations, deploying more official detachments from its army.

Russia is trying to rebrand the mercenaries, creating Africa Corps, a parallel group that could absorb Wagner, said John Lechner, a Wagner expert.

In Central African Republic, it’s still unclear how much sway the Russian state has with the mercenaries, who are beloved by many and embedded in society, brewing beer and visiting markets. Still, they largely keep to themselves, walking through streets with faces covered and driving in unmarked cars.

For many, Prigozhin was a national hero. Standing at a downtown monument of Russian soldiers, people lay flowers at its feet paying respects, a year after his death.

For most people here, there’s little interest in squabbles among foreign nations.

“There are problems between the Americans and Russians, but that doesn’t matter to us,” said Jean Louis Yet, who works at Bangui’s market. “We are here working, trying our best to make a living.

“All we want is security.”

AP reporters James Pollard in New York; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Jean Fernand Koena in Central African Republic contributed to this report.

Nearly $6B in Ukraine aid at risk if Congress doesn’t act by month-end

Nearly $6 billion in U.S. funding for aid to Ukraine will expire at the end of the month unless Congress acts to extend the Pentagon’s authority to send weapons from its stockpile to Kyiv, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. officials said the Biden administration has asked Congress to include the funding authority in any continuing resolution lawmakers may manage to pass before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 in order to fund the federal government and prevent a shutdown. Officials said they hope to have the authority extended for another year.

They also said the Defense Department is looking into other options if that effort fails.

US to send $125 million in new military aid to Ukraine, officials say

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the funding talks, did not provide details on the options. But they said about $5.8 billion in presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, will expire. Another $100 million in PDA does not expire at the end of the month, the officials said. The PDA allows the Pentagon to take weapons off the shelves and send them quickly to Ukraine.

They said there is a little more than $4 billion available in longer-term funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative that will not expire at the end of the month. That money, which expires Sept. 30, 2025, is used to pay for weapons contracts that would not be delivered for a year or more.

Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that as the Defense Department comptroller provides options to senior defense and military service leaders, they will look at ways they can tap the PDA and USAI funding.

He said it could be important to Ukraine as it prepares for the winter fight.

“One of the areas that we could do work with them on … is air defense capabilities and the ability to defend their critical infrastructure,” Brown told reporters traveling with him to meetings in Europe. “It’s very important to Ukraine on how they defend their national infrastructure, but also set their defenses for the winter so they can slow down any type of Russian advance during the winter months.”

Earlier Thursday at the Pentagon, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the press secretary, noted that the PDA gives the Pentagon the ability to spend money from its budget to send military aid to Ukraine. Funding in the $61 billion supplemental bill for Ukraine passed in April can reimburse the department for the weapons it sends.

“Right now, we’re continuing to work with Congress to see about getting those authorities extended to enable us to continue to do drawdown packages,” said Ryder. “In the meantime, you’re going to continue to see drawdown packages. But we’ll have much more to provide on that in the near future.”

The U.S. has routinely announced new drawdown packages — often two to three a month.

Failure by lawmakers to act on the PDA funding could once again deliver a serious setback in Ukraine’s battle against Russia, just five months after a bitterly divided Congress finally overcame a long and devastating gridlock and approved new Ukraine funding.

Delays in passing that $61 billion for Ukraine earlier this year triggered dire battlefield conditions as Ukrainian forces ran low on munitions and Russian forces were able to make gains. Officials have blamed the monthslong deadlocked Congress for Russia’s ability to take more territory.

Since funding began again, U.S. weapons have flowed into Ukraine, bolstering the forces and aiding Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Ukraine’s forces stormed across the border five weeks ago and put Russian territory under foreign occupation for the first time since World War II.