US Military Video Shows Russian Fighter Jets Crossing in Front of a B-52 Bomber During 'Unsafe' Intercept

LE – In this June 19, 2017 file photo, a U.S. RC-135U flying in international airspace over the Baltic Sea was intercepted by a Russian SU-27 Flanker. (Courtesy photo/Released)

A pair of Russian fighters conducted an "unsafe and unprofessional" intercept of a U.S. B-52 Stratofortress bomber over the Black Sea Friday, the U.S. Air Force said in a statement Saturday.

The service said that two Russian Su-27 Flankers "flew in an unsafe and unprofessional manner while crossing within 100 feet of the nose of the B-52 multiple times at co-altitude and while in afterburner causing turbulence and restricting the B-52's ability to maneuver."

The U.S. military released the video of the incident.

Gen. Jeff Harrigian, the U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander, said in a statement that "actions like these increase the potential for midair collisions, are unnecessary, and inconsistent with good airmanship and international flight rules."

He added that the Russian aircraft "jeopardized the safety of flight of the aircraft involved."

Russia regularly executes intercepts that are considered "unsafe and unprofessional." Earlier this year, for instance, the U.S. Navy accused Russia of doing so at least three times in just two months, with Russian fighters closing to dangerous distances or carrying out risky maneuvers while intercepting US P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft.

In one instance, a Russian fighter conducted a high-speed inverted maneuver just 25 feet in front of the US aircraft, a move seemingly pulled straight from the movie "Top Gun."

In another close call, two tactical aircraft closed in on both sides of the P-8, restricting its ability to safely maneuver.

The unsafe intercept of a bomber by Russian fighters Friday followed a series of intercepts of Russian patrol aircraft by NORAD fighters the day before.

North American Aerospace Defense Command F-22 stealth fighters intercepted three groups of two Tu-142 Russian maritime patrol aircraft in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone on Thursday. The Russian aircraft came within roughly 50 nautical miles of Alaskan shores, NORAD said in a statement Friday.

Russian long-range air patrol flights near the US appear to be occurring more frequently.

"This year, we've conducted more than a dozen intercepts, the most in recent years," NORAD commander Gen. Glen VanHerck said in a statement. "The importance of our continued efforts to project air defense operations in and through the north has never been more apparent."

The NORAD intercepts of the Russian maritime patrol aircraft came the same day US Northern Command said that it was "closely monitoring the Russian submarine that surfaced near Alaska." The submarine is believed to have been participating in a large scale Russian naval exercise.

"We closely track vessels of interest, including foreign military naval vessels, in our area of responsibility," NORTHCOM said.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/30/us-military-video-shows-russian-fighter-jets-crossing-front-of-b-52-bomber-during-unsafe-intercept.html

US Troops May Have Role in Mass COVID-19 Vaccination Effort

U.S. military medical personnel or National Guard troops might assist in inoculating the public once a viable, safe vaccine is developed for COVID-19, senior government health officials said Friday.

Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said localities are currently developing how to vaccinate Americans when one becomes available.

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The strategy could include using pharmacies as distribution points, or setting up mass inoculation centers and employing military support, they said.

“We are not going to take anything off of the table,” Redfield said in response to a reporter’s question during a press call Friday. “There is the potential for jurisdictions to want assistance from the National Guard or the military. The military is clearly providing a lead role in [the] logistics of all of this.”

Currently, more than 19,800 National Guard personnel are activated and supporting pandemic response across the U.S., according to Brig. Gen. Nick Ducich, vice director of the operations directorate for the National Guard Bureau.

They are engaged in supporting testing sites, distributing food and cleaning facilities, Ducich said.

Active-duty and Reserve military members also continue to treat civilian patients in coronavirus hotspots across the United States. About 740 military medical and administrative support personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force were deployed to community medical centers in California and Texas to support coronavirus response as of Friday.

At the height of the nation’s pandemic response, more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel were deployed for COVID-19 operations, establishing temporary hospital facilities in New York City and elsewhere, manning Navy hospital ships and working in communities.

Currently, two vaccine candidates are in Phase III clinical trials – the step that proves effectiveness and rules out adverse reactions. According to Mango, nearly 30,000 volunteers have enrolled in the two trials, which require a total of 60,000 participants.

At the same time, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and an advisory panel at CDC are evaluating the safety of vaccine candidates and developing recommendations on which populations will get the vaccine first and where they will be distributed, Redfield said.

The Defense Department announced earlier this month that it and HHS selected McKesson Corporation to serve as the central distributor for future COVID-19 vaccines and related supplies.

McKesson previously distributed vaccines during the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic, according to Redfield.

HHS and DoD are coordinating the national vaccine initiative, known as Operation Warp Speed. Redfield said that in the weeks ahead, communities will begin rolling out their plans for distributing a vaccine, which he and Mango said could be approved before New Year’s Eve.

“We feel we are absolutely on track, if not a little bit ahead, in terms of our overall objective to have tens of millions of safe, effective vaccines approved before the calendar year ends,” Mango said.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/29/us-troops-may-have-role-mass-covid-19-vaccination-effort.html

=Milley Says No Role for Military in Presidential Vote==

Lolita C. Baldor

WASHINGTON — The U.S. armed forces will have no role in carrying out the election process or resolving a disputed vote, the top U.S. military officer told Congress in comments released Friday.

The comments from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscore the extraordinary political environment in America, where the president has declared without evidence that the expected surge in mail-in ballots will make the vote “inaccurate and fraudulent,” and has suggested he might not accept the election results if he loses.

Trump's repeated complaints questioning the election's validity have triggered unprecedented worries about the potential for chaos surrounding the election results. Some have speculated that the military might be called upon to get involved, either by Trump trying to use it to help his reelection prospects or as, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has suggested, to remove Trump from the White House if he refuses to accept defeat. The military has adamantly sought to tamp down that speculation and is zealously protective of its historically nonpartisan nature.

“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military," Milley said in written responses to several questions posed by two Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.”

Milley's tone reflects the longstanding views of military leaders who insist that the nation's military stays out of politics and that troops are sworn to protect the country and uphold the Constitution.

But the two Congress members, Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, said Friday that Trump's recent comments and his efforts to use the military to quell protests have fueled their concerns. The two lawmakers released Milley's answers.

Faced with polls showing he is trailing Biden, Trump last month said it was too early to guarantee he'd accept the election results.

“I have to see. Look … I have to see,” Trump said on ”Fox News Sunday.” “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no." The Biden campaign at the time responded that "the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

Trump later suggested that the election should be postponed, since the coronavirus pandemic has made it likely it could take days or weeks to count mail-in ballots. But that idea was immediately slapped down, including by top congressional Republicans, since the election date can only be changed by Congress.

Milley, known to be a student of military and constitutional history, anchored many of his responses in the nation's founding document. Asked if the military would refuse an order from the president if he was attempting to use military action for political gain rather than national security, Milley said, “I will not follow an unlawful order.”

The speculation about the military getting drawn into the election is fueled by Trump’s inclination to use the military as partisan props. He raised alarms — and met resistance from the Pentagon — when he threatened to use the Insurrection Act to use troops for law enforcement during the protests after George Floyd’s death. Defense Secretary Mark Esper publicly said he opposed such a move —- a stand that enraged Trump and nearly cost Esper his job.

The questions were also sent to Esper, and the answers were due Thursday, but Slotkin said he has not yet responded. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst and senior Pentagon policy adviser and Sherrill served in the Navy for about 10 years.

This is the second time in recent months that Milley has made a public stand against military involvement in politics. In June he used a speech at the National Defense University to express regret for walking with Trump through Lafayette Square in what turned out to be a photo op during public protests after the death of George Floyd.

He said photos of him there “sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society.” And he told the military audience, ”we must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our republic.”

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/28/milley-says-no-role-military-presidential-vote.html

Space Force Was Set to Announce Its New Rank Structure. Then, Congress Stepped In

Crenshaw is an arrogant tool

The U.S. Space Force was all ready to move ahead with announcing a rank structure – until lawmakers stepped in, according to the newest military branch's top enlisted adviser.

Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman on Wednesday said that an amendment proposed by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, that would require the service to use Navy ranks, stalled the sixth's military branch's plans to roll out a personnel structure

"So we've got to let that law, that legal system play out, and until it plays out, there's really no point right moving forward," Towberman said during a Q&A segment during the Air Force Sergeants' virtual symposium.

=Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who was medically retired as a lieutenant commander, proposed an amendment in the House version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, requiring "the same system and rank structure as is used in the Navy," for the Space Force according to a summary of the text== The House and Senate have passed their versions of the NDAA, and the chambers will meet to iron out the differences after the August recess.

I'm ready to be a master chief if that's what the law says I'll be; we're ready to pivot and do something else if we're asked to do something else," Towberman said.

Towberman continued, "I know that that's frustrating to folks, we really would have preferred to have an answer by now. We're going to [start] bringing airmen in on Sept. 1, and for those junior grades in particular, it means they're still going to be called 'airman' even though they're in the Space Force, because we just don't have any other options right now."

The Space Force on Thursday announced Towberman, currently the command senior enlisted leader to both the Space Force and U.S. Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, will no longer wear both hats; Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Scott Stalker will become the SPACECOM adviser, according to a release.

Experts have argued that a Navy rank system would make sense for the fledgling Space Force.

"A good reason to use Navy ranks in the Space Force is to better distinguish [Space Force] personnel from Air Force personnel, kind of like [the Marine Corps] using different ranks than the Navy," Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said last month via Twitter.

Furthermore, a naval command structure would emphasize strategic similarities between space and maritime operations, Lt. Col. Peter Garretson, then-deputy director of the Schriever Scholars program at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, said in an interview last year. He has since retired.

The space domain, Garretson explained, has evolved beyond putting equipment in orbit to extract information. It now involves fast, free movement for commercial purposes, much like the ocean.

"In maritime theory, navies exist in order to secure commerce," he said, adding that the commercialization of space is on a path to evolve at a rapid rate with businessmen such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk looking to capitalize on assets in space. "Once that happens, it starts to look a lot more like naval power – the logistics, location," Garretson said last year.

Even William Shatner the actor who portrayed Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" series recently backed the idea.

In an Op-Ed titled, "What the heck is wrong with you, Space Force?" published in Military Times, Shatner said there is historical precedence in the entertainment industry, anyway for space commanding officers to take naval ranks.

For example, "'Le Voyage Dans La Lune' ('A Trip to the Moon,' 1902) the earliest known space film had a captain in command of the rocket ship played by Henri Delannoy," Shatner pointed out, adding a handful of examples of leaders who "have been the heroes that saved the day, the planet, the galaxy and the universe."

"And even though it pains me to point out, Han Solo was 'captain' of the Millennium Falcon," he joked.

Fictional characters who've held ranks from other military branches were prone to disaster, he argued, highlighting Lee Majors' character Col. Steve Austin, "an astronaut who crashed his ship and severely injured himself that cost taxpayers $6 million to put him back together."

"'Star Trek' has borrowed so much of its iconic rank symbols from the U.S. military and NASA," Shatner wrote.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/27/space-force-was-set-announce-its-new-rank-structure-then-congress-stepped.html