Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, the Army’s chief of the general staff, told Defense News during a recent visit to Washington that the creation of the new unit is based around the fact that “the future is growing unpredictability, and [with] uncertainty and volatility.”

The new regiment, made up of four battalions, is expected to come online before the end of the year. U.K. officials said the group is actively modeled on the American Green Berets. Britain’s recent integrated review of defense, security, foreign policy and international development called for £120 million (U.S. $170 million) over the next four years for the unit.

Asked why Britain would create the unit now when the country and the U.S. are jointly focused on great power competition and drawdowns in the Middle East, Carleton-Smith pointed to the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he described as being “engaged in a campaign of proxy management,” one where the allied special forces focused on building local partner capacity.

“That’s a long-term game and a long-term investment, but it’s also a specialist sport, particularly with respects to the cultural dimension. It’s also become almost a house style,” Carleton-Smith said. “And we think in the future that house style is going to have greater applicability in regions of the world such as Africa, which continues to incubate violent extremist threats. And we therefore needed to build greater capacity.”

The challenge will be building partners’ capabilities while transforming Britain’s existing “tier one” special operations forces to prepare them for great power challenges, the general said. “In order to find that time and the resources for that [transformation], they will need to relinquish some of the responsibilities that have been their daily diet in the post-9/11 world and hand off responsibility to the conventional force,” he explained.

Hence, the rangers, who will “give us the capacity for raising, training, mentoring, advising and accompanying local surrogates in high-threat and hostile environments, a role that was previously almost the exclusive preserve of our tier one special forces, but we now need within the conventional force as well.”

“They will act as the long-term continuity to our training and liaison relationships on the outposts of the map fold, capitalizing actually on our global network of training bases,” he added, highlighting locations such as Kenya, Brunei and Belize as areas with existing regional partnerships in which the rangers could step in and lead.

When the integrated review was released in March, James Heappey, the U.K.’s armed forces minister, highlighted sub-Saharan Africa as a “growing market” for the ranger capability. Carleton-Smith also identified Africa as a key concern that London is watching as it spins up this new regiment.

“I think we can see indices that concern a sort of growing instability across sub-Saharan Africa. And if the demographics, you know, are to be believed, the population may double in the course of the next 20-25 years. And we Europeans have already seen potentially only the very tip of the human volcano that Africa, if left unattended, could represent,” Carleton-Smith said.

“And so we think early, prophylactic action now, in support of local partners across that region, will [enhance] the resilience and the military capacity that they’re going to need to handle this growing instability,” he added. “And of course we’re dealing with vast expanses of geography, almost perfectly tailor-made for the incubation of future extremist threats who found it hard to survive, of course, in Waziristan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, and are looking for other areas in which, of course, to ply their trade.”

During a May visit to Washington, he sat down with Defense News to explain some of the changes facing the service as the U.K. moves toward a heavily digital future focused on the Pacific region.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The U.S. Army is having an existential discussion about its role as a land force at a time when the country is focused on the Indo-Pacific region — an area certainly not lacking bodies of water. Britain’s integrated review posits a need to focus on that region. What is the British Army’s discussion about its future there?

Well, you’re right: The strategic relevance and utility of the land component, particularly the conventional land component, in a moment in military history when it looks as though the real challenge is warfare of the information age, rather than continuing to double down on conventional dominance in a form of warfare that might already be behind us, is one of the existential challenges which the review has sought to address.

With respect to the specifics of the land contribution across the Indo-Asia-Pacific: Our emphasis as the Army will be more on the Indo than it will be necessarily to the Asia-Pacific. We’ve had long military relations across that region, most particularly with Australia and New Zealand. And those are ones that we will continue to reinforce. They play host to combined exercises to which we contribute. We are interested in continuing to reinforce our relationship with both Japan and South Korea. Japan I visited just before COVID-19 lockdown, and I’m planning to visit Seoul later in the summer. And so those all indicate a much more active Army conversation across the region.

When it comes to defending against Russia, the U.S. is considering increasing its inventory of pre-positioned gear. What’s the British Army’s plan for defending Europe, if such action is necessary?

“Forward presence” would be my bumper label for it. The key utility that we need to bring is readiness and speed of response, and that is much more complicated with a domesticated Army garrisoned in the United Kingdom. We are going to be doubling down on our residual Army locations in Germany and making sure that we’re going to forward-base some of our key war-fighting equipment and stocks in order to increase our responsiveness and shorten the timeline. And we will simply flow troops forward to marry up with our equipment in Germany. From there, they will be able to exploit all the overland strategic routes to reinforce our Baltic partners, our [Enhanced Forward Presence] in Poland, and indeed I wouldn’t even rule out in the future a greater British Army interest in the southern flank of the Balkans.

We have the facilities and are investing in more facilities for precisely that in Germany. We’ll be looking at a sort of spoke-and-hub arrangement, but the real investment is going into a sort of central depot.

The British Royal Air Force said it wants to be carbon neutral by 2040. The U.S. Army is investing in electric vehicles. Do you have a big green idea?

I think the Army, given our size and scale, needs to be a core leader with respect to the green agenda in the U.K. After our own National Health Service, we’re the single-largest organization in the country. We are responsible for just over 1 percent of the U.K.’s real estate. So we’ve got not just a responsibility, we’ve got a real opportunity.

We are opening our first set of solar farms later this summer. We would want, inside the balance of this decade, to be carbon neutral and generating all our own energy in order to sustain our garrisons. And we have plans for upward of 100 solar farms across our accommodation garrison and training estates in the future.

This isn’t just, in a sense, burnishing our green credentials; it actually comes with very significant materiel [and] operational advantages as well. It makes the force lighter, more self-sustained and with less detrimental footprint, all of which is a good thing.

Is this just for basing and not related to going carbon neutral for the whole force?

In a sense, [it’s part of creating] all our own energy for the running of our own facilities. I think we’re, industrially, still some way away from completely living without carbon engines in our principal war-fighting equipment. There’s considerable battery and propulsion requirements that have not yet been solved.

I think the next generation feels a responsibility toward it. They’re intellectually interested in it. Some of them find it one of the important features of an organization that they’re inclined to volunteer and serve with, so it’s a major incentive — or disincentive, if we get this wrong.

Ben Barry, a warfare analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the following in a recent paper: “The British Army will be capable of fielding a war-fighting division by 2025. However, it will be smaller, less heavy and have less modern armor than originally planned.” Is that a fair assessment?

I think Ben is correct that the cornerstone of our modernization priorities is the upgrading of a digitized suite of war-fighting equipment built around a nucleus of our main battle tank, the Apache, the Boxer armored personnel carrier and our Ajax vehicle, supported by an emphasis on long-range precision fires and surveillance and target acquisition capabilities, armed UAVs, and a big emphasis, now, on ground-based air defense and electronic warfare. I think bringing that complete orchestra together is going to be something that will be closer to the back end of the decade than the 2025 that he talks about.

But what will be happening by 2025 is the fielding of the front end of a series of accelerated programs around Boxer and the modernization of Challenger III tanks. And at that juncture we can begin to withdraw from service some of those legacy systems, such as the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle, which are becoming obsolete evermore rapidly with encroaching technology.

The integrated review includes a plan to retire the Warrior armored vehicle after years of declaring it was vital for the Army. Was this purely a money decision, or have military needs changed?

I think Warrior fell into that bracket of being a legacy platform — first fielded in the very early 1980s, so 40 years old already. It had been the subject of a couple of upgrades, most recently in order to field it in Afghanistan, but it was really toward the end of its shelf life. And the debate was: Were we going to pour very scarce, precious new money into a platform that was going to be nearly 50 years old by the time we were fielding it? Or would it not be better to take this to be the moment to take it out of service, invest the money in new emerging capabilities, such as Boxer, buy more of them, and accelerate the production? And it became really quite an easy decision — that if we were going to get off to true transformation, we needed to leave behind as many of the 20th century legacy systems [as possible], and Warrior fell precisely into that.

The challenge is that Boxer isn’t a direct substitute and like-for-like replacement. So what it does argue is that we need to reimagine how that close battle is fought. Most close battles in the future are going to look and feel very much more like Mosul and Raqqa and Fallujah than it is going to feel like the Central European plain. And therefore utility of an [infantry fighting vehicle] in order to maneuver dismounted ground troops into fixed defensive positions feels like less of a priority for me against being able to operationally deploy infantry across large, strategic distances quickly.

You’ve said the Morpheus program, which is a key digital backbone for the Army’s modernization efforts, is on track. But we know digital integration onto older platforms can create problems. What’s the challenge there?

It’s certainly not a challenge we would want to duck. And given that it’s a challenge, it’s not a good reason not to be doing it. We are at an absolute inflection moment where the theory of warfare — its actual conduct and execution — is diverging exponentially. The crux for the British Army is to transform to an organization optimized for warfare of the information age, and at the heart of that clearly is digitization. Only with a digitized force can you bring to bear the full constellation of defense capabilities.

I do think future land warfare is going to be fought at ever greater range, ever greater lethality and precision. The entire battlespace feels today much more like a giant sensor. And I think some small wars are throwing up really interesting big lessons — I’m talking around Nagorno-Karabakh, Libya, Syria, etc. — where we can already see the tactical application of early generation artificial intelligence, quantum computing, early fielding of remote robotics and autonomous systems, and for the very first time a mixed economy of manned, unmanned and semiautonomous systems.

What today occasionally looks and feels clunky, of course, is going to exponentially improve really quite quickly, certainly [in] the balance of this decade. And on that basis, the geometry of the battlespace changes and the economics of warfare change with it because you can’t afford to field a really expensive, vulnerable system probably manned by people. Because if it’s seen, it will be identified, and if it’s identified it will be killed. And it’ll become virtually irreplaceable. So this becomes a macro game of hide and seek.

You mentioned the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, which involved suicide drones and loitering munitions. Is the Army investing in those offensive capabilities? Are you focused on capabilities to defend against such systems?

We need both. [We have] a renewed emphasis on ground-based air defense, which has not been a military challenge for us over the last 20 years. It really is today. I was speaking not that long ago to a retired Army chief, among whose distinctions it was that he could claim to be the last Army chief to have had a spear thrown at him. I countered by saying I thought I was the first Army chief to have been bombed by a UAV, and you know, that is how the warfare is changing.

We will be fielding a deeper suite of armed UAVs, both short and medium range. At the same time, we need to protect against the opposition who’ll be fielding exactly the same capabilities, and getting the balance between the two right is going to be important.

Speaking to Defense News during a recent visit to Washington, Carleton-Smith, the Army’s chief of the general staff, said that divesting the aging vehicle frees up money to invest in other equipment that is a better fit for how the land component will fight going forward.

“We need to reimagine how the close battle is fought. And I think most close battles in the future are going to look and feel very much more like Mosul and Raqqa and Fallujah, than it is going to feel like the central European plain,” Carleton-Smith explained. “Therefore, the utility of an [Infantry Fighting Vehicle] in order to maneuver dismounted ground troops into fixed defensive positions, feels like less of a priority for me, against being able to operationally deploy infantry across large strategic distances quickly.”

The security review, released in March, axed plans to extensively upgrade the virtually obsolete Warrior, as the U.K. Army and the other armed services have embarked on a transformation policy towards the information age and away from traditional platforms.

Since 2011, Lockheed Martin UK has been leading the development effort to update Warrior with a new cannon and digitized turret, better protection and other improvements.

The upgrade program is now seven years late and more than £225 million ($319 million) over budget, with Lockheed pointing the finger at the MoD for much of the delay. Still, until the release of the security review, the program was expected to move forward pending government approval a more than £800 million ($1.1 billion) production deal to update around 275 vehicles.

Nixing the upgrade program has already had its industrial consequences; Lockheed has announced job losses at the Ampthill, southern England, site where it has invested in creating a turret center of excellence.

The company is also supplying General Dynamics UK with turrets for its Ajax armored reconnaissance vehicle fleet now in production for the British Army, and is casting around for opportunities to leverage its turret capabilities in other programs.

Carleton-Smith said that once the Army’s transformation agenda was taken into account, along with the competition for resources and age of the platform, killing off Warrior was quite a straightforward decision.

“It became really quite an easy decision. If we were going to get to true transformation, we needed to leave behind as many of the 20th century legacy systems [as possible] and Warrior fell precisely into that,” said the British general.

The plan is for the Warrior to be taken out of service by the middle of the decade, as the wheeled Boxer 8×8 armored vehicle enters service. While Boxer isn’t a perfect like-for-like replacement, its ability to quickly travel long distances provides greater value than updating the Warrior, said Carleton-Smith.

The British MoD already has a contract with Boxer maker ARTEC to build more than 500 vehicles, with the extensive local supply and manufacturing effort being led by Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land and Krauss-Maffei Wegman’s U.K. subsidiary, WFEL.

Under the current contract, deliveries were scheduled to run for nine years starting 2023. The delivery tempo of just one per week, from two production sites, was labelled “astonishing” in a recent parliamentary Defence Committee report.

Carleton-Smith said the Army was now looking to raise the production speed and buy additional vehicles in the wake of the Warrior decision.

“The debate was, were we going to pour very scarce, precious new money into a platform that was going to be nearly 50 years old by the time we were fielding it? Or would it not be better, to take this moment to take it out of service, invest the money in new emerging capabilities, such as Boxer, buy more of them, and accelerate the production?” he said.

The MoD said recently it was looking at options to increase the lethality of some of its Boxer fleet with missiles or a cannon to better replace the lethality lost by ditching updated Warriors equipped with the CTAI 40 mm gun.

During an April visit to Washington, Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, the head of the Royal Air Force, sat down with C4ISRNET to discuss some of those investments outlined in the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

One item listed in the integrated review was a new intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellite constellation. Can you elaborate on what the thinking is there?

Our aim for that program is a [constellation of] responsive launched small satellites, low Earth orbit constellation, where we have the option of selecting the payloads, selecting the role and selecting the position of the satellites, and then launching them and getting them into operation in a very, very short decision action cycle. This is something that is attractive to me as an operational commander. And I think it will have direct utility for the war fighter, that ability to respond to a crisis in a particular part of the world, or perhaps a requirement to add some resilience to another part of the space network. [This design] means we can respond, launch and get something into service very rapidly. And that’s the work that we will be continuing over the next couple of years, for that particular aspect of our space program.

The U.K. government has invested in the company OneWeb. Is that something you think might be a fit for this system?

The U.K.’s investment with OneWeb was a another part of government, so that’s separate from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence. But there are elements of OneWeb — and all of the similar systems that are being launched into space at the moment — around the command and control, the level of autonomy and autonomous control in those satellite constellations, where there’s huge numbers of small and very small satellites working together. So there are elements of what OneWeb is doing, which are of interest to me, in a similar way to some of the other similar systems that have been launched at the moment. But that’s not something that I’m directly involved with.

The U.K. was involved in the European navigation system known as Galileo but was forced out following Brexit. British official discussed doing a U.K.-only system, but that has been delayed and is seen by some analysts as too expensive. What is the current status of these discussions?

So again, the primary responsibility for that is in another part of government, but of course, the Ministry of Defence is involved because of our interest in, and the importance of, GPS and global positioning. And we’re still analyzing and assessing what the options are, because nobody needs us to build a direct duplication of a system that’s already in place like GPS. But what would be really helpful, as we look at a more challenged, a more competitive [space] and potentially a need for greater resilience in space, is a system that’s complimentary, that might be made in a different model, with a mix of nodes on the network, some of them on the surface of the Earth, some of them in space. There are some options there, and an opportunity to do something different, which is complimentary to GPS, but that adds resilience in a different way. So I’m very keen that we continue to explore that. And it’s certainly something that the U.K. has some world-leading technologies, and we’ve got a lot to offer. And so that will be something that we will continue to work on over the next few years.

The U.S. stood up both a Space Command and a Space Force in the last couple of years. The U.K. is now spinning up its own Space Command. Can you walk us through what that’s going to look like, and what the interaction with its U.S. counterpart might be going forward?

The U.K. Space Command is an opportunity for us to bring together some quite disparate elements — of largely Royal Air Force units — that are operating in space and are closely linked in with U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force already, but we haven’t had a unifying command and control and a unifying organization for them. I think this, at the very outset of the U.K. Space Command, it’s an opportunity for us to bring together everything that we’re doing in space, in the Royal Air Force and in the U.K. Ministry of Defence, bring it all under one organization to make sure that we’re channeling the investment that we’re going to make, that we’re giving the people in that organization the skills and the equipment they need to make sure that we are living up to our ambition and our prime minister’s ambition for the U.K. to take a leading role in Europe in space. And so the Space Command will be that nodal point where we engage with allies, like the United States, that we share information, that we develop new systems, and that we continue to benefit from all of the opportunities that space offers.

Across the board, the commercial sector outspends governments on technology investment, but it’s particularly true with space. You have billions earmarked in the integrated review for space, which is real money, but the reality is that you will need to rely on private sector investment going forward. How do you make that work?

Space is already an enterprise where some of the leading progress that’s being made at the moment is in the commercial sector and private companies making enormous leaps in space technology and what we are doing in space. And so working closely with those will be a key part of the U.K.’s space plan and the U.K.’s role in space. The figures for commercial investment in space, of course they dwarf what we are doing from a military perspective, but our role is significantly different. Because whilst those commercial organizations are investing in space to provide services, to enable things to go faster and further on Earth to enable people’s day-to-day lives, the role of the Royal Air Force, the role of armed forces in space, is fundamentally different. We’re there to understand what some of our potential adversaries, some malign actors, are doing, to understand and to protect what’s our critical national infrastructure in space, and to be ready to defend it. That’s about information sharing, that’s about understanding and having a clear picture of what’s going on in space. And that’s about working with allies so that we’re ready to act when we see something which, you know, crosses the line of unacceptability.

Speaking at the annual McAleese & Associates conference, Hyten explained that under the department’s still-in-the-works joint war-fighting concept, there are four subsidiary topics of focus: information advantage, joint command and control, fires, and contested logistics.

By the end of May, Hyten said, the JROC — which serves as an oversight body on the development of new capabilities and acquisition efforts — will publish strategic directives on speeding up the acquisition system for those four key areas.

“Speed is critical. And I’m trying to put speed back in the JROC,” Hyten said. “We’re working with the department to figure out how to put speed, and focus experimentation, so we can drive to the future. We’re working to figure out how to transition experiments quickly into operations. And the reason we’re doing this is because the threat demands it.”

Hyten did not go into detail about what the JROC guidance will look like, but did indicate it will have a focus on allowing lower-level officials flexibility in how they go about working acquisition issues.

“Many people in our enterprise still like being very deliberate and taking no risks, and making sure we understand everything before we move forward. We like to make sure that every test works, and we don’t test until we’re sure that it’s going to work,” he said. “We can’t do that kind of business anymore, we have to be able to go forward, which means we have to give that responsibility to much younger people in our formation.

“We have to give the authority and responsibility to the people that do work. We do that on the operation side of our business, but we don’t do that on the acquisition side of their business, and we have to do that again. They have to be given the responsibility, the authority and the funding flexibility to make decisions, put money where it needs to be, and go fast because otherwise we will not be able to keep up with our adversaries.”

Hyten previously discussed the need to develop new data standards through the JROC in order to make the joint war-fighting concept work.

“We believe we will enable the services to move fast because we’ll display the information requirements, we’ll define the data requirements, we’ll define how those pieces have to be done,” Hyten said Thursday. “And the advantage the services get from that is, if we define them correctly, the services never have to come back to us in every program they have with interoperability requirements.”

The administration announced in early April that the fiscal 2022 budget request asks for $753 billion in national security funding, including $715 billion for the Defense Department. Further details were omitted during the release of the so-called skinny budget, a process common for new administrations who need extra time to build out their first budget request.

The budget request is not expected to include reliable numbers for Future Years Defense Program projections. It is expected the budget request will feature attempts to divest existing systems, something Congress often moves to reverse during the markup process.

Republican lawmakers have hit back at the $715 billion figure, saying it does not match a need — articulated under the previous administration — for annual 3-5 percent growth in defense spending. Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, are looking for ways to cut spending further.

Ronald Moultrie, the nominee for undersecretary for intelligence and security, and Mike McCord, who is seeking a second term as undersecretary of defense (comptroller), faced little opposition during the hearing. Both Sens. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the top Republican on the committee, and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said they would support the nominees, while Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., expressed support for McCord.

That support likely locks the nominees in for an easy path forward at a time when SASC Chairman Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said he is focused on installing a wave of nominees in the department.

For Moultrie, a large number of questions focused on cybersecurity, particularly in light of the hack of a major U.S. oil pipeline over the weekend. Moultire acknowledged concerns about defending the defense-industrial supply chain from future digital attacks, calling it “inherently vulnerable” and warning that adversaries, particularly China, “understand” the industrial base and know how to target it.

To counter that, Moultrie said, a push toward greater communication between the government and industry on vulnerabilities and risks is needed.

“I think we have to ensure that we continue to identify what our vulnerabilities are in those key areas, in those key industries, in those key organizations,” Moultire said in response to a question about supply chain dangers. “We have to make them aware, senator, of what the challenges really are and what the threat actually is. And that means we have to — I talked about public-private partnerships — to be able to go out and talk to them, make sure that they understand this. And if confirmed I would work vigorously to ensure that we’re doing all we can to support the mitigation of risks in our supply chain as it exists today.”

With McCord, questions largely centered on two issues: the Pentagon’s ongoing audit, and whether he supports annual defense budget growth of 3-5 percent, a requirement defense officials first claimed during the Trump administration.

McCord previously voiced support for that growth, something Republicans pointed out when asking about the Biden administration’s defense budget, which does not include that annual increase in its top-line figures.

The nominee threaded the needle, noting that while that dollar amount may have been correct for what was laid out in the previous National Defense Strategy, the new administration will write its own document that would require different financial resourcing.

As to the audit, McCord called it a “priority” should he be confirmed, but did attempt to level set what the effort can achieve.

“It is not the answer to every question, certainly. An audit doesn’t tell — won’t tell you whether the particular airplane you bought was the right plane for the mission, for example, or whether the contractor overcharged you. Those are all different aspects of control that are above and beyond the financial audit,” McCord said.

“But that said, it does help identify where resources may be being wasted or improperly used, or inefficiently used. And the controls that are one of the big hurdles between where the department stands today and achieving that audit, getting all the controls in place, I think takes on new meaning in this era of cyber intrusions. So I think that they’re the business process reforms that are necessary for an audit — are things that department needs to be doing anyway. And the audit is a good forcing function for the direction that department needs to go.”

McCord said that while defense officials previously expected a clean audit in 2027 or 2028, if confirmed he would make it an early priority to talk with staff and see if it is possible to speed that up.

WASHINGTON — On March 16, the United Kingdom rolled out its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, a document that will serve as the guidepost for its military going forward. Included in that document were both cuts to existing systems and investments in new technologies.

During an April visit to Washington, Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, the head of the Royal Air Force, sat down with Defense News to discuss the impact of the review on the service, program cuts and future investments.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The integrated review pushes a lot of money into high-end capabilities, but cuts programs and end strength. What do you say to criticisms that the document goes too far in the “capability vs. capacity” discussion?

We all recognize over the last two, three decades, perhaps longer, [that militaries] have had to make that trade-off between mass and technology, because technology came at a high price, and that technological sophistication cost significantly more than the simpler platforms that were being replaced. But I think we’re at a turning point now, and I think we’re at a point where we can look to technology to bring us mass. We can have mass and technology and technological sophistication. And it’s that technology that that enables us to have that mass.

[Look at] today’s tactical unit of an eight-ship of Typhoon or eight-ship of F 15s. Well, in the future that eight-ship equivalent might be 100 swarming drones, 10 uncrewed combat aircraft loyal wingmen and two piloted motherships. The numbers and the calculus changes because of technology.

There’s an opportunity now for us to reframe that narrative of “it’s a choice between mass and technology.” I think you can have both.

The review hints at a reorganization inside the Royal Air Force but without much detail. What specifics can you offer?

Everything tells me we’re going to need different skills into the future. I’m going to need more people that understand space, I’m going to need more data analysts, I’m going to need more digital engineers. The workforce is going to have to change, and it’s going to have to change quickly, probably faster than we have changed our workforce and our professional skill base in the past. We’ve got to be more agile about how we transform our workforce.

The second thing is how we train that workforce — synthetic training, virtual reality, the opportunities for coaching and training in the workplace. The other changes we’re going to make is around our infrastructure and our bases, bringing a much higher level of automation into everything we do, from guarding the bases to running the supply networks on the bases to servicing the aircraft and platforms on those bases. That’s work that we’ve got underway now. And again, it’s work that’s benefiting from the enormous leaps in digital technology and the technological revolution that we’re seeing in the private sector and across the commercial sector.

As part of the review, you decided to retire the E-3D Sentry aircraft while also cutting the planned purchase of its replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail, from five planes to three. Why?

It’s a really good question, and it was a topic of a lot of discussion during the integrated review as well. I’m delighted that our government has recognized the importance of stepping to the future with the E-7. The E-3 has served us brilliantly for many decades, but it has, to my mind, reached the limit of its ability to develop and our ability to innovate and technologically [prepare it] for the future battlespace, and some of the threats and some of the threat systems that we’re going to be facing. And the E-7 offers all of that. The E-7 offers that generational leap in technology and digital technology in terms of the sensors, in terms of how it moves data and information around to other platforms, other aircraft, other users in the battlespace, and its ability to reshape the terms of what airborne warning as well as command and control actually means.

As far as the numbers are concerned, yes, working with a fleet of three is going to have its limitations. I think anybody would recognize that. But there’s scope for working with NATO, there’s scope for working with the United States Air Force as we operate as allies around the world. And I think the connectivity of the Royal Air Force’s E-7 fleet in the future and our ability to work with allies will make up for any shortfalls in capacity in the short term.

Do you want to get that fleet back up to five planes?

Well, I think that’s an option, and I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. As it stands at the moment, the announcement and the plan is for three, and of course we can make that work. And we will work with NATO, and we will both contribute to the NATO airborne early warning and command-and-control network, and we will use the NATO platforms as well. So I think there’s always a scope to come back to us in the future. But right now we’re focused on introducing this new platform, this exciting new platform and taking advantage of everything that it offers as a step into the future.

The U.K. had an official target of buying 138 F-35B fighter jets. However, the integrated review only says the government plans to buy more than the 48 planes already under contract. Officials have dodged when asked for specifics, such as if 138 is still the target. Is that number still in play for you?

The F-35 is a hugely important program for me. We’re still in the early stages. I’ve only had 21 delivered so far of my 48 original order, we’ll be up at 33 next year and 48 in the years after that. I’m very conscious that the reason we bought the F-35Bs was to pair them up with our two carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. [The carriers] are going to be in service until the late 2060s, at least. And so I need a fleet of aircraft that is going to last into that sort of time frame. So I’m taking a very steady view to how I build a fleet up because I need these aircraft to last for that amount of time.

We are committing to growing the fleet and we’re going to continue to grow the fleet. And in that regard, nothing has changed. We’ve had discussions with the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin this year, and decisions are to be made next year about the next batch of aircraft that we will buy. We have now established two squadrons: a training unit and a front-line squadron. I’m looking to establish a third squadron, and I think I need at least three, probably four squadrons worth of F-35Bs to work off the carriers.

But as I say, this is still a force that we’re growing. And we are going to be operating these platforms for potentially 50 years. So I’m not in any hurry to get to any final figure in the short term. And we will just make sure that we’ve got a force that is sustainable through the life of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Could you see the U.K. shifting from buying the “B” model to the conventional “A” model?

Yes. It’s been a live topic over the years in the United Kingdom, and to that, I also say: “Never say never.” But that’s a decision for the future, and that’s something that perhaps my successor will come back to.

But there is no question that for the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, our focus right now is on building sufficient F-35Bs that we can operate from our two carriers, and not be trying to do it with too few aircraft and too few people and putting unnecessary strain on the force.

One program getting a big funding boost is the Future Combat Air System, and specifically the Tempest fighter. Did getting that money for Tempest require trade-offs elsewhere in the budget?

The U.K. government is committing an additional $2.8 billion over the next four years for the Future Combat Air System program. I think that sends a very clear signal of how important the government sees the requirement for a future fighter aircraft that’s ready to protect the U.K. and our allies’ airspace, something that’s ready to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon from the late 2030s, something that can compete on the world stage as an exportable platform, and something that gives the United Kingdom the opportunity to work with allies, like Italy and Sweden, in the development of it. So for me, it was a very clear statement of sovereign ambition from the United Kingdom.

I don’t see it as [requiring] trade-offs in those terms because the additional money that the government decided to invest in the U.K. armed forces over the next four years, which equates to $33 billion — the Future Combat Air System and space were all part of that, and our ambition to do more around space and with our allies, like the United States in space. So the Future Combat Air System is a hugely important program, but that’s something that didn’t require a trade-off with other aspects of our program.

Another kind of futuristic capability in which the U.K. is investing is the Mosquito, which is a unmanned loyal wingman program. What is the target date for it to be operational?

When we talk about the Future Combat Air System, Tempest is the piloted fighter within that. But the Future Combat Air System will be a mix of piloted combat aircraft, of unpiloted or autonomous or remotely piloted combat aircraft, and then down to cheap, expendable drones all working together. The date for the Tempest (the piloted fighter) is from the late 2030s. For me, I want to see — and I think technology allows us to get our loyal wingman, our uncrewed autonomous combat aircraft Mosquito — on the front line this decade. And that’s the target I’ve set for our team who is working on it. I want to see it flying on the wing of the F-35, I want to see it flying on the wing of Typhoon this decade, as an operationally deployed platform and as a concept demonstrator, and to de-risk the Future Combat Air System program. So the first flight within the next couple of years [as part of] a really impressive, digitally enabled design program where we are iterating the design very rapidly, and then fielding it within a matter of years, is the ambition.

Will you seek international partners for Mosquito the same way you did for Tempest?

There’s no question that there’s an opportunity for international collaboration on that system. At present, we’re doing the concept of development with a company in Belfast, Northern Ireland. But I know that we’ve had a lot of interest from potential allies, potential partners to join us in the program. And of course, we’re watching what Australia is doing, what the United States is doing, because we’re not alone in developing this technology. But for me, the imperative is to get this into service as quickly as we can. And as I say, getting our Mosquito loyal wingman in service by the end of this decade is my challenge to the team.

WASHINGTON and LONDON — The United Kingdom has set a requirement that its Royal Air Force have net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But according to Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, the service needs to work under the assumption that it has to hit that target a decade earlier — and accept that other budget priorities will be cut to make it happen.

Speaking to Defense News during a recent visit to Washington, Wigston said the push toward net zero — where the overall carbon footprint is either reduced to zero or balanced out by other efforts to remove carbon from the atmosphere — will also be something he discusses with other air chiefs throughout this year, with a hope of finding agreements on how to move forward as a military aviation community.

“I recognize that sounds crazy to some, that we’ve got an Air Force Chief talking about being net zero,” Wigston said. “But I think the imperative is clear: our politicians will demand it of us, are demanding of us. Our public demands it of us. And the young people in the Royal Air Force today demand it of me and the leadership, that we should be taking a lead in this.”

The Air Chief’s comments came just days after the Biden administration hosted a world climate summit, during which U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described the threat of climate change as an “existential” national security issue, and roughly a month after the MoD released a document on adopting a new strategic approach to enhancing sustainability and reducing armed forces emission levels in order to meet wider government environmental targets.

The MoD review argued that defense will be stronger if it keeps up with new, adaptable and efficient options for reducing fuel consumption.

“We are already at the forefront of the new and growing green military agenda, trialing new types of vehicles, fuels standards, energy storage and much more. Done right, this will improve how we meet the defense and security challenges of the future,” the review states.

That effort will fall particularly on military aviation if the MoD is to meet its mandated net-zero emissions target by 2050. Two-thirds of defense fuel is consumed by military aviation, while the MoD itself accounts for half of all British government emissions.

While the 2050 target is the official deadline, Wigston has ordered his team to aim for 2040 instead, based in part on what he called a “hunch” that as the climate crisis expands, both the public and politicians will begin pushing for net zero sooner, and it is best for the RAF to be prepared.

“That will require additional investment. It will require me diverting investment from equipment and platforms into infrastructure and into how we operate,” Wigston said. “But I think that’s a price that we’re going to have to accept that we’re going to have to pay, and I see a leading role for the Royal Air Force in that.”

All of the RAF’s planes are now certified to use 50 percent synthetic fuels, Wigston said. But for the service to take advantage of that capability requires getting suppliers and industry on board, while also changing the military infrastructure to accommodate new fuel sources.

The easiest part may be the first, thanks to a push on the commercial aviation side to pursue net-zero efforts. Wigston noted that the U.K. has set up a Jet Zero Council, which is focused primarily on non-military aviation. “A large part of that is about commercializing synthetic fuel production and making sure that it’s available at the pumps around the civil airspace infrastructure,” he said. “So military air forces can take advantage of that.”

The second part is harder, and it requires coordination among ally and partner air forces to make a reality. The U.K. using alternative fuels for its jets doesn’t matter if the planes are operating out of a U.S. base without that fuel on hand, after all. To that end, Wigston hopes to have serious conversations with his counterparts in 2021 about developing universal standards.

That’s “something that we are proposing to our fellow air chiefs over the next few months, so that by the end of the year, I would like to hope — and I’m certainly aiming for a common declaration amongst global air chiefs — that these are the steps that we’re going to take collectively, because this is the only way that I think we’re going to achieve this, to get to a position where we are consuming far less hydrocarbons in fuel terms.”

“The way we power our aircraft, the way we power our bases, the way we talk to our supply chain, [to] our industrial suppliers about their carbon and sustainable practices, are all going to be things that are important for all Air Forces,” Wigston added. “And it’s something that I want the Royal Air Force to take a lead in, and it’s something that I will be coming back to with my fellow air chiefs around the world to reach a common understanding of what we’ve got to do. And then declare a common ambition of how we will get there.”

On Thursday, Australia was cleared to purchase a package of Heavy Armored Combat Systems, with an estimated price tag of $1.685 billion, and four CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters, with an estimated price tag of $259 million. On Friday, India was cleared to purchase six P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft, worth an estimated $2.42 billion.

FMS notification figures represent potential arms sales that the State Department internally cleared, then passed to Congress through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The notifications do not represent final sales; if Congress does not reject the potential sale, it then goes into negotiations, during which dollar figures and quantities of equipment can change.

The potential sales go to two key allies for the U.S. as it is increasingly focused on the Pacific. Both nations are part of the “Quad,” a group of like-minded partners that also includes the U.S. and Japan.

The Indian package would include the six P-8I aircraft, as well as radio systems, engines, navigational systems, and contractor support. Boeing is the primary contractor, with work performed at its Seattle facility. The proposed sale “will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner, which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia region,” according to the DSCA notification.

India procured eight P-8I aircraft in Jan. 2009 via a direct commercial sale, and went under contract for another four in July 2016. The Indian Navy has operated the planes since 2013.

The Australian Heavy Armored Combat Systems package involves taking 160 M1A1 Tank structures and hulls provided from U.S. stock, and then using those to produce a variety of vehicles and equipment, including: 75 M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks; 29 M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicles; 18 M1074 Joint Assault Bridges; six M88A2 Hercules Combat Recovery Vehicles; and 122 AGT1500 gas turbine engines.

Interestingly, the agency announcement notes that included is “development of a unique armor package,” without details on what that might look like. Work will be spread amongst General Dynamics Land Systems, BAE Systems, Leonardo DRS and Honeywell Aerospace; Australia typically requires commercial offsets in FMS cases.

“The M1A2 SEPv3 Main Battle Tanks will upgrade the current Australian fleet of M1A1 SA tanks with no changes to Royal Australian Armoured Corps force structure,” the agency announcement read. “Additional M88A2 vehicles provide de-processing and combat vehicle recovery support for the Australian tank fleet. The M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicles (ABVs) and M1074 Joint Assault Bridges (JABs) will be a new capability for the Royal Australian Engineers, bringing under-armor bridging and breaching capability, increasing the effectiveness and survivability of Australian Combat Engineers and providing increased mobility for the armored fleet.”

The Chinook deal covers the four helicopters, along with “customer-unique modifications.” It also involved eight T55-GA-714A aircraft turbine engines, as well as associated mission systems and equipment. Aircraft will be provided from U.S. Army stock.

After an initial pause to review FMS cases approved by the Trump administration, the Biden state department has now approved 15 potential weapon sales, with a combined $8.9 trillion potential price tag.