DoD Official: National Defense Strategy Will Rebuild Dominance, Enhance Deterrence

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19, 2018 — The new National Defense Strategy announced today is aimed at restoring America’s competitive military advantage to deter Russia and China from challenging the United States, its allies or seeking to overturn the international order that has served so well since the end of World War II.

It is the first new National Defense Strategy in a decade. The defense strategy builds on the administration’s National Security Strategy that President Donald J. Trump announced Dec. 18.

Elbridge A. Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, briefed Pentagon reporters about the unclassified summary of the strategy in advance of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis unveiling the policy, saying “this is not a strategy of confrontation, but it is strategy that recognizes the reality of competition.”

The National Defense Strategy seeks to implement the pillars of the National Security Strategy: peace through strength, the affirmation of America’s international role, the U.S. alliance and partnership structure and the necessity to build military advantage to maintain key regional balances of power, he said.

Confronting Challenges

The strategy states that the primary challenge facing the Defense Department and the joint force is “the erosion of U.S. military advantage vis-a-vis China and Russia, which, if unaddressed, could ultimately undermine our ability to deter aggression and coercion and imperil the free and open order that we seek to underwrite with our alliance constellation,” Colby said.

The strategy aims at thwarting Chinese and Russian aggression and use of coercion and intimidation to advance their goals and harm U.S. interests, and specifically focuses on three key theaters: Europe, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, Colby said.

While Russia and China are the main U.S. adversaries in this strategy, DoD must address North Korea, Iran and the threat posed by terrorism, Colby noted, and he said this strategy does that. “The strategy will have significant implications for how the department shapes the force, develops the force, postures the force, uses the force,” he said.

More Lethal, Agile Force

The strategy looks to build a more lethal and agile force, Colby said. It shifts away from the post-Desert Storm model, and DoD seeks to modernize key capabilities and innovate using new technologies and operational concepts to maintain dominance across all domains, he explained.

The strategy will build on America’s unequalled alliance and partnership constellation and seek new partners for the future, he added.

Finally, the strategy seeks to reform DoD to create a culture that “delivers cost-effective performance at the speed of relevance,” Colby said.

The new strategy is needed because China and Russia have “gone to school” studying the American way of war, he said, and the U.S. dominance in the Middle East during Desert Strom was not lost on Russia or China. The two nations have spent the last 25 years studying ways to deny America its greatest military advantage, he said: the ability to deploy forces anywhere in the world and then sustain them.

The anti-access, area-denial methods that both Russia and China have developed need to be countered, and this new strategy sets in place the framework around which to build those capabilities, Colby said.

Joint Force Should Be Ready

“The joint force should be ready to compete, to deter and -- if necessary -- to win against any adversary,” Colby concluded.

Modernization has been the sacrificial lamb in the recent budget wars, and this strategy reemphasizes the importance of modernization, Pentagon officials said. The strategy specifically states the United States must modernize the nuclear triad. It also emphasizes the importance of space and cyberspace as domains of warfare and calls for resilience in both space and cyberspace capabilities and technology and concepts to operate across the full domains.

The strategy also calls for modernized command-and-control assets and for new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, officials said, adding that missile defense plays a large role in the strategy, as well as the development of advanced autonomous systems.

Officials said the strategy also calls for resilient and agile logistics systems that will continue to operate under multidomain attack.

The Pentagon Library is full of documents that were announced with great fanfare, but ultimately were ignored or discarded. Officials say the National Defense Strategy will not be one of those.

“I think if anybody knows Secretary Mattis or looks at his history, he’s not inclined to publish documents or give guidance that he doesn’t actually intend to execute,” Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a recent interview in Brussels. “I can assure you that one of the things that gives me confidence the National Defense Strategy will affect our behavior is Secretary Mattis’ ownership of the National Defense Strategy, and his commitment to actually lead the U.S. military in a direction that is supportive of that National Defense Strategy.”

Leadership will be key to implementing the strategy, Dunford said. “I have a high degree of confidence that the secretary’s going to drive implementation of the NDS,” he said. “And I’m equally committed, as are all the combatant commanders and the service chiefs, to supporting the secretary in execution of the NDS.”

DoD Issues Guidance for Potential Government Shutdown

By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19, 2018 — The Defense Department has issued guidance to its military and civilian leadership on how to proceed if the federal government should shut down at midnight tonight, according to a memorandum from Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan.

The deputy secretary said in his memo issued yesterday that the Trump administration does not want the government to shut down.

“The administration is willing to work with the Congress to enact a short-term continuing resolution to fund critical federal government operations and allow Congress the time to complete the full-year 2018 appropriations,” Shanahan said in his memo.

While he and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis hope Congress passes a continuing resolution or an annual appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018 defense activities, he said, “prudent management requires that the department be prepared for the possibility of a lapse in appropriations.”

War Operations to Continue

While the memo contains guidance on essential personnel to continue DoD operations during a potential shutdown, he said, the department will continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and operations against al-Qaida and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and will continue to make preparations for deployments into those conflicts.

“The department must, as well, continue many other operations necessary for the safety of human life or the protection of property,” the memo read. “These activities will be ‘excepted’ from the effects of a lapse in appropriations: All other activities would need to be shut down in an orderly and deliberate fashion, including -- with few exceptions -- the cessation of temporary duty travel.”

Military: Normal Duty Status

All active-duty service members will continue in a “normal duty status,” regardless of their affiliation with excepted and unexcepted functions, the memo said.

“Military personnel will not be paid until such time as Congress makes appropriated funds available to compensate them for this period of service,” the memo said. “Civilian employees paid for lapsed appropriations and who are not necessary to carry out or support excepted activities will be furloughed, i.e., placed in a nonwork, nonpay status.”

Shanahan emphasized that no shutdown actions are to be taken until further notice is provided.

“To repeat, the secretary and I hope that Congress will pass a funding bill and the DoD will avoid a shutdown,” Shanahan’s memo read. “This guidance is intended to support prudent planning.”

Maintenance Airmen Pull Duty in Frigid Antarctica

By Susan A Romano, 25th Air Force

PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., Jan. 19, 2018 — With 24 hours of daily sunlight in their favor, a team of seismic technicians traveled to Antarctica at the southernmost point on Earth to conduct annual maintenance of the equipment they use to monitor global nuclear treaties.

Six members of the Air Force Technical Applications Center based here made the trek to Antarctica to troubleshoot and replace seismometers that contribute to the International Monitoring System.

The team also conducted full inventories at the sites and replaced generator starter batteries used to power the stations. The seismic equipment is used to detect activity caused by naturally occurring events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or lightning strikes, as well as man-made events such as mining activity or nuclear explosions.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Jeremy Hannah, a geophysical maintenance supervisor, served as the team lead during the five weeks the team was deployed. Hannah and his fellow seismic maintainers flew from the United States to New Zealand, then on to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, a 14-plus hour trek from one hemisphere to another, including flights aboard an Air Force C-17 and a Bell 212 helicopter.

Logistics, Research Hub

McMurdo Station is the logistics and research hub of the U.S. Antarctic Program and is managed by the National Science Foundation. As part of its global nuclear treaty monitoring mission, AFTAC analyzes seismic data collected from the station and provides it to the U.S. National Data Center.

The Antarctica site, located 1,200 miles north of the South Pole in the McMurdo Dry Valleys near Lake Vanda, supports the International Monitoring System as part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, and is one of thousands of sensors within AFTAC’s global network, the largest in the Air Force.

A typical duty day for the team consisted of an early rise, breakfast, field work, lunch, preventive maintenance requirements and dinner. Then, a few hours of enjoying the beauty of the landscape. When the team is at the station, they sleep in hardened facilities. In the field, they’re in sleeping bags on the floor of the hybrid power station at Bull Pass or Mount Newall.

Staying properly nourished in sub-zero temperatures is critical to team safety and wellness. When they’re at McMurdo, they enjoy their meals at the station’s cafeteria. When they’re in the field, however, they cook their meals using a camping stove and crockpot. And while most would think the frigid temperatures and austere conditions are the most challenging aspect of their mission, one team member said his biggest hurdle was sunlight.

“Personally for me, having no real track or sense of time was difficult to get used to,” said Air Force Senior Airman Richard Westra, a geophysical maintenance supervisor. “Twenty-four hours of sunlight was a blessing because we could accomplish so much work without worrying about darkness, but it was also somewhat disconcerting not knowing if it was 10 a.m. or 10 p.m.”

Antarctica: ‘Absolutely Breathtaking’

He added, “After a full day of work, though, it’s great to be able to take a hike or walk around to see a place very few people in the world get to experience. Every morning I’d get up and just look outside for several minutes, taking it all in. It’s absolutely breathtaking, and the views blow your mind each day.”

Of the six airmen who made the journey, four had never visited the site before. Travel to AFTAC’s site requires airlift via helicopter, which was one team member’s favorite part of the journey.

“It was so cool to fly over a partially-frozen sea, see penguins and orcas and witness the scenery below in a helicopter, no less,” said Air Force Senior Airman Andrew Pouncy, one of the first-time visitors. “It was an opportunity of a lifetime, and I hope I’ll be able to make the trip again.”

In addition to providing seismic information to senior U.S. decision makers, the data from these sensors also help scientific and academic communities at large.

“We closely coordinate with the NSF and the U.S. Antarctic Program not only when we are deployed to the southern hemisphere, but also when we are back home in Florida,” Hannah said. “This trip, we also worked with the Berg Field Center, the place that outfits both ground and helo teams that work near and around McMurdo. They are an invaluable resource for us.”

The team also serviced AFTAC’s solar generators and wind turbines, better known as hybrid power stations.

“Maintaining our seismic equipment at Vanda is critical to our treaty monitoring mission,” Hannah said. “Because of the weather and rugged terrain, we have a small window of opportunity to perform the necessary troubleshooting to ensure the data is transmitted to the NDC in support of the International Monitoring System as part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. I’m really proud of the team and what they were able to accomplish on this trip.”

The airmen are now authorized to wear the Antarctica Service Medal on their uniforms.