JULY/AUGUST 2019 AIRFORCEMAG.COM 15media inquiries handled swiftly—especially when they were about
bad news. “Delay breeds suspicions,” he said.
Republican leaders on Capitol Hill praised Esper’s nomination. “I
think he’s good,” Inhofe remarked. “I’ve been in the field with him to
see how he does with the troops. ... He does an exceptionally good job.”
Esper was a West Point classmate of Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and will bring an undoubtedly Army-centric perspective to
his new post. Meanwhile, the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
is about to shift as well, also to the Army.
Army Gen. Mark A. Milley will succeed Marine Corps Gen. Joseph
F. Dunford Jr. in the fall. A Princeton graduate who has been Army
Chief of Staff since 2015, Milley will be succeeded by Army Vice
Chief Gen. James C. McConville. Ryan McCarthy, who had been
undersecretary, will be nominated to succeed Esper and is Acting
Army Secretary for now, the White House said.
The White House said David Norquist, the Pentagon’s Comptroller
and acting Deputy Defense Secretary since Mattis departed, would
soon be nominated to permanently fill the deputy position. No
backfill for Norquist had been announced as of this writing, however.
HYTEN RUNS THE JROC
The Air Force, which hasn’t held the chairmanship of the JCS
since Gen. Richard B. Myers had the job from 2001-2005 —the longest
any service has gone without taking the JCS chair—will continue its
hold on the Vice Chairman’s job. The Vice Chairman leads the Joint
Requirements Oversight Council, or JROC, a critical oversight role
with regard to major acquisition programs. Air Force Gen. John E.
Hyten will succeed Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva in that role, likely
before the end of the year.
Hyten, a Harvard graduate now head of US Strategic Command,
has been an outspoken champion of space. Deeply experienced in
space operations, he was previously head of USAF Space Command
and has been supportive of the plan to create a Space Force within
the Department of the Air Force ... for the time being. He testified in
February, however, that he believes Space Force should eventually
become a separate, sixth service.
As head of JROC, Hyten will supervise the joint-service oper-
ational requirements process, seeking consensus from the Joint
Chiefs on acquisition priorities and advising the Defense Secretary
on adjudicating intraservice conflicts.
CHANGING THE SPACE ARCHITECT
In addition to Shanahan, the Pentagon’s space architect, Fred
G. Kennedy, also stepped down in June after only a few months
on the job. Kennedy had been director of the Space Development
Agency, “on detail from DARPA,” the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Heather
Babb. She said June 21 that Kennedy would go back to DARPA.
John Stopher, space adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force,
also announced plans to step down July 19.
Derek M. Tournear, assistant director for Space within the Pen-
tagon’s research and engineering undersecretariat, became the
Acting Director of SDA three days later, and Babb said he would
be dual-hatted; keeping his old job while also heading SDA. Tour-
near managed space systems at Harris Corp., served as a program
manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency
and DARPA, and also worked at the Los Alamos Labs. “There is no
change to the mission or activities” of SDA, Babb told Space News,
adding the agency will “drive the Department’s future threat-driven
space architecture and will accelerate the development and field-
ing of the new military space capabilities necessary to ensure our
technological and military advantage.”
Kennedy had only been in the job since March, but ran into
conflicts with Michael D. Griffin, the Pentagon’s head of research
and engineering. Kennedy had been brought over from DARPA’s
Tactical Technology Office, where he worked in space systems
research and management, and his initial charter was to spearhead
an effort to launch hundreds of small satellites to establish resilient
constellations in missile defense and communications. Kennedy’s
position was getting wan support from other space factions that
felt SDA was redundant to missions already performed by the Air
Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. Griffin pushed for the
creation of SDA, which was also championed by Shanahan. Ken-
nedy’s charter now becomes Tournear’s. Separately, Griffin also
moved to sweep other areas, as well. In June, he fired Strategic
Capabilities Office Director Chris Shank and moved to put the SCO
under DARPA. Ranking House Armed Services Committee member
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) questioned that move and included
language in the panel’s markup of the National Defense Authoriza-
tion Bill seeking further study. SCO specializes in quickly putting
new gear in operator hands, advancing projects from requirement
to the field in under two years. DARPA, on the other hand, focuses
on long-term strategic research.
Will Roper, the Air Force’s acquisition chief, was the prior SCO
director and has said its best work stems from adapting existing
capabilities for new missions not originally intended. Indo-European
Command, European Command, and the Joint Staff challenged
Griffin’s decision, saying the SCO fills a crucial function not easily
duplicated at DARPA. Selva told reporters in June he was concerned
that the COCOMs needed to have access to SCO’s ability to deliver
quickly on urgent needs.BARRETT’S SECOND GO
During the long debate on Space Force, the Air Force’s position
was well articulated by former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson,
whose departure on May 31 (to take a new job as a university
president) left Undersecretary Matthew P. Donovan as the Acting
Secretary. The White House announced May 21 it would nominate
Ambassador Barbara Barrett—a lawyer, banker, and rancher—to
succeed Wilson. If formally nominated—it had not been relayed
to Capitol Hill by late June—it would be her second try for the job.
Barrett served as Ambassador to Finland late in the George W.
Bush administration and as head of the now-defunct Civil Aero-
nautics Board under President Ronald Reagan. She has served on
numerous advisory panels to the Pentagon, including the Defense
Advisory Committee on Women In the Services, or DACOWITS, and
on the boards of numerous aviation- or military-oriented organiza-
tions and companies, such as Raytheon, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
and RAND, and was chairman of the nonprofit Aerospace Corp.
Barrett is a private pilot with a multi-engine rating who also has
great interest in space, having gone to Star City in Russia to prepare
for a tourist trip to the International Space Station. If confirmed, she
would be the third woman in a row and the fourth woman to serve
as Secretary of the Air Force.
Barrett was nominated to be Air Force Secretary in 2004, and
was intended to succeed James G. Roche in that capacity when
Roche was nominated to move over to be Secretary of the Army.
Roche’s nomination was indefinitely held up, however, by the Sen.
John S. McCain (R-Ariz.), who objected to Roche’s planned attempt
to lease air refueling tankers from Boeing. After months of delay,
Roche withdrew his nomination and stayed on in the Air Force
post, and Barrett’s name was withdrawn.
The White House’s desire to add momentum toward Space Force
as a separate service was surely an important factor in the nomination
of space enthusiast Barrett. The administration had expressed frus-
tration with Wilson’s highlighting of the cost and limited value-added
of a Space Force at this particular time, and Barrett, if nominated,
would likely champion the move with greater gusto. J