Daily Report

Aug. 24, 2017

US Treasury Extends Sanctions on North Korea

The Department of the Treasury announced expanded sanctions against North Korea on Tuesday as the US seeks to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. Read the full report by Wilson Brissett.

B-1s, B-52s Deploy to Europe

Three USAF bombers deployed to the United Kingdom on Wednesday in advance of weeks of training across Eastern Europe. Two B-1Bs from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess AFB, Texas, and one B-52 from the 307th Bomb Wing at Barksdale AFB, La., landed at RAF Fairford on Wednesday, US European Command announced. The bombers will fly over the Slovak International Air Fest in Slovakia and the Radom International Air Show in Poland on Aug. 26-27. After those events, the bombers will fly in exercise Ample Strike 2017 in the Czech Republic from Aug. 28 to Sept. 9, the release states. The yearly exercise focuses on day and night strike operations. —Brian Everstine

Coalition’s Deconfliction Channels Active as Syrian Battle Gets More Congested

The US-led coalition is still relying on its deconfliction channels with Russia as the battlefield gets “ more congested” inside Syria, the coalition’s deputy command said. British Army Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones, deputy commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said during a Wednesday briefing that the coalition’s established phone line with Russian officials is “serving us very well” as coalition-backed Syrian Democratic Forces advanced on ISIS territory, and come in closer contact with forces allied with Syrian President Bashar al Assad. There are “protocols ready to go” and deconfliction processes being used to avoid incidents in areas such as Tabqa and Manbij, Jones said. “We’ve got the procedures in place. We know how to deconflict. We always knew that, in the later stages of this campaign, the battle space would become more and more contested, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing,” Jones said. US-backed fighters continue to advance on ISIS’s self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, where an estimated 2,500 ISIS members remain, Jones said. Coalition aircraft continue to hit the city, with 14 strikes hitting more than a dozen ISIS units and 26 fighting positions, US Central Command said in a release. —Brian Everstine

Hanscom Airmen at Work on Network Security Upgrades

Airmen at Hanscom AFB, Mass., have begun taking a hard look at ways to better track, assess, and eventually improve the cybersecurity of the service’s web traffic. According to a Hanscom release, airmen there are currently setting up a monitoring system to keep track of “security events” within the system that manages “all Air Force operations,” determining trends that point to security successes or failures and identifying solutions. This project is part of a $1.6 million investment USAF made with contractor Enlighten IT Consulting, which will continue to advise the team on scaling up its operations, from analyzing information within a single base to looking at data across the entire network concurrently. A Hanscom spokesperson told Air Force Magazine the traffic being analyzed comprises everything from what airmen click on their desktop to information they exchange on their BlackBerries. Both the non-classified internet protocol router network and the secret internet protocol router network are being evaluated, he added. —Gideon Grudo

Pentagon IG Report Warns European Reassurance At Risk

The Pentagon’s large increase in funding for the European Reassurance Initiative, and the accompanying rise in operations tempo, is at risk of coming before US European Command has enough personnel and resources to execute the mission, the Defense Department’s Inspector General found. In a report released Tuesday, the DOD IG found that EUCOM does not have specific metrics to assess the impact of activities under the ERI, and may not have enough infrastructure to sustain the mission. The ERI, which began in the Fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act and has received expanded funding every year, focuses on increasing the US presence in Europe, along with improving the infrastructure and exercise tempo there. To evaluate the program, the DOD IG focused on Operation Atlantic Resolve activities in Eastern European nations and found that EUCOM needs to establish metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative, along with ensuring that infrastructure improvements meet US and NATO standards, and ensure that there are enough personnel to execute the mission. Additionally, the unpredictability of future funding puts the future effectiveness of the reassurance initiative at risk, the report states. (Read the full report. Warning; large PDF file.) —Brian Everstine

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RADAR SWEEP

—Additional US troops will arrive in Afghanistan “within days or weeks” following President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new US strategy for that country, Central Command boss Army Gen. Joseph Votel said Tuesday: Military.com

—Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin has been dismissed from his role as commander of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan. The move comes two days after the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant vessel east of Singapore, leaving ten sailors missing: CNN

—Air Force officials at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, are weighing a change in flight patterns that would increase efficiency and safety for pilots but bring more noise to some neighborhoods near the base: Alaska Dispatch News

—The Desert Defender Ground Combat Readiness Training Center, the Air Force’s largest security forces training center, recently graduated its first joint class including members from USAF and the Navy: Fort Bliss, Texas, release.

—A group of new lawsuits, filed by Sacramento-area water districts, alleges that McClellan AFB, Calif., which closed in 2001, is responsible for contaminating water sources near the base. Plaintiffs are seeking $1.4 billion in damages:? Sacramento Bee

Correction

An entry in the Aug. 21 Daily Report incorrectly reported the date of an MQ-1 Predator crash at Incirlik AB, Turkey. The crash occurred on Aug. 17. We have updated the original entry.