Air Force Strategy Published June 23, 2008 Thank you all for coming today. When I was first asked to speak here, I decided to speak on Air Force strategy. A few things have changed since then, but not the important things. The geopolitical state of the world has not changed. America's role in the world has not changed. Nor has the mission of the Air Force. There is a well known saying in the Air Force, no one is indispensable...not the Secretary, not the Chief, no one. We do our duty to the country and to the Air Force with the certain knowledge that the mission comes before us and will continue after we are gone. We have been strident on the needs of the Air Force, and knew that this might cause a rough patch--comes with the territory. We have changed the debate on a few topics that will also make a difference for our Air Force, for our joint partners and for our Nation. I have had the high honor of leading this Air Force, and helped save some lives on the battlefield; and helped kill some bad guys. My partner in this endeavor, General "Buzz" Moseley, has been stalwart in his companion stridency for getting our Air Force set for an uncertain future, while we answer the call in today's fight. I want to publicly salute him, and praise his service, his war fighting spirit, and his integrity. Today, I will deliver the same talk I planned to deliver before. I will talk to you about Air Force strategy. There will be time for questions following. Skelton's challenge Last fall, during a Congressional hearing, Chairman Ike Skelton of the House Armed Services Committee asserted that neither General Moseley nor I had a strategy for the Air Force. The assertion was not correct. The Air Force did have a strategy. It has been displayed in the great work A-8 has done to build a required force around the requirements stipulated by the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review. Nevertheless, neither of us had developed a concise statement of strategy that succinctly describes why we organize, train and equip our forces the way we do that pointed the way to the future. In response, General Moseley and I both wrote papers. I wrote one that lays out our rationale for what we are doing and explains how we are using the resources available to overcome the problems we are currently facing...and are likely to face in the future. My audience was mainly Congress and influencers that want a touch of a sweep of history, and therefore a broad outlook as to how to approach an uncertain future. General Moseley wrote one that does a bit of the same and also provides some detailed ideas about what we need to do to get where we're going...a good deal of it is aimed squarely at Airmen. As it turns out, our thinking on these matters is virtually identical. Frankly, I do not believe there have ever been a Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force who agree so strongly on the state of the Air Force or what needs to be done to reset it for the future. I believe the events of the last few days go even further toward showing this. General Moseley and I are in sync ... but not because of some strange coincidence. We are in harmony because there is a strategic logic that flows from the state the world is in today to what we in the Air Force must do to respond. We are in sync because, if you understand airpower, if you have spent your life working with space power, if you have even a foggy notion about the role cyber power will play in the future of war, certain things follow. They follow logically and inevitably. Do I think we have all of the details right? Of course not. I'm a fire starter of the first order and I need fireman and men with shovels to follow. But we do have the big arrows right. Filling in the dots and making the concepts we describe work will be up to you. And the enemy gets a vote. We are here to give you a charge The reason for this conference, the reason you are here today is to hear the Air Force strategy. Look around you. The people gathered in this room are the Air Force's thinkers. As much as I advised the attendees at last week's CORONA that they are the managers of our Air Force, I look to you as the Air Force's future. We want you to see the big picture and understand how all of the Air Force, the total Air Force, fits into it. We want you to be able to link your part of the story, the part you are responsible for, to the big picture. To build a joint Air Force, we need to cohesively understand ourselves. Put another way, we are here today to give you a charge. The strategy we are presenting is not the whole picture, it's the outline. The real work, the tough work, the work that matters, is what we want you to do. We want you to take these ideas and write your strategies around them. We want you to think about these things and figure out what needs to be done...first on the staff, then at the wing, and finally in squadrons spread across the face of the globe. We truly manage first top down, with overarching strategies; and then bottom up with innovation and performance. Air Force Smart Operations is about resetting the Air Force for the 21st century. Innovation will come from the bottom. The role of senior leadership is to remove obstacles to those innovators. Why we have a military Let me begin at the highest level and tell why we have a military. Since WWII, we have maintained the most powerful military on earth at great expense. We have done so in order to maintain a peaceful and stable world system. We have kept bases, troops, ships, and planes in every corner of the globe to protect a world system in which wealth is distributed through trade, not violence. We have fought for a world ruled by law and markets rather than guns. For over 60 years, our efforts have been successful. Never before in the history of the world has peace prevailed for so long for so many. There are some who will say this is a fluke, or that human nature has changed and that nations have become innately peaceful as a result. This is not the case; the world remains peaceful and stable today because U.S. forces deter those who would use violence to obtain their ends. In the U.S. led international system, deterrence has been and continues to be our chief goal. In world history, stability is not the norm. But, so long as the enemies of stability are certain that the US can and will stop them from using force to obtain their goals, they will back down. But when they believe our capabilities or our willingness to use that capability has been weakened, or marginalized, they will be emboldened. The Air Force's role In this global mission, the Air Force plays a particularly critical role for two reasons. First, the Air Force is America's technology service. It is not America's only technology service, but it is our youngest service and its focus on air, space, and cyber has made it into the service most quick to develop and use new technology. Technology is America's asymmetrical advantage. We cannot always match our opponents in their willingness to risk human life; we cannot always match our opponents in sheer numbers; but we are unlikely to meet any opponent who can beat us in the field of military technology. In recent years, that technology has bought us a lot. In the Cold War, our technology played a significant role in the capitulation of the Soviet regime. By the 1980s, the Soviet military was convinced that despite its vast advantage in numbers, they could not begin to stand up to what they labeled, the U.S. revolution in military technology. During the wars of the last two decades, technology has continued to pay dividends. So long as we controlled the air and could bring our ISR and precision weapons to bear, our troops were able to extract many multiples of casualties for each American life lost on the battlefield. And this is critical. Let me tell you how technology, Air Force technology, is paying off for us in the war today. Over the last two years, we have experienced a revolution in counterinsurgency warfare due to Air Force technology. Before going to Iraq...when General Petraeus wrote his counterinsurgency doctrine, his advice to his commanders was to use airpower sparingly. When he actually got there, however, he did just the opposite. During the surge, General Petraeus increased the number of air strikes by 400 percent. He increased the weight of ordinance dropped by 1000 percent. He multiplied his use of aerial ISR many times over. Why did he do this? He did it because of rising confidence battlefield commanders have in what airpower can bring to the fight. He did it because we provided him with technology that allowed him to succeed. We developed UAV communication systems, like ROVER, that greatly increased air to ground connectivity. We provided precision weapons that vastly improved our ability to kill insurgents without killing civilians. We put this system on many airplanes, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Over the last few months, despite the insistence among many counterinsurgency theorists that airpower should be limited, the Air Force has been berated for not providing enough air assets. We've gone from pushing our unwanted forces into the theater to being told we're not providing them fast enough. It has been painful, but if we have managed to save lives by changing minds when it comes to the usefulness and strength of air power, it has been worth it. The second asymmetrical advantage America gets from the Air Force is our ability to project power. The system we are protecting is global. To fulfill our mission we must be capable of projecting power globally. Our vigilance must be global. Our reach must be global. And our power must be global. During World War II, we fulfilled these missions by basing millions of soldiers all around the globe. Today we can no longer afford such extravagance. Today, our GDP cannot support it and our population will not tolerate it. Today, the Air Force is a major player in our power projection capability because it can project power at a price America can afford. Let me continue on this theme for a moment longer. We need an Air Force because our opponents understand what our asymmetrical advantage in airpower technology can do. They understand that so long as the United States can fight a war and give multiple casualties for each one we receive, we are virtually undeterable. Knowing that, they are far less likely to attack their neighbors, build nuclear weapons, or abet terrorist groups. Similarly, our friends know that will be honor our commitments. They will believe in our commitment and trust in our institutions. It is not enough to be powerful. We must have a form of power that is inexpensive to use. The day our opponents sense that we are unwilling to back up our commitments because of their cost in American lives, they will no longer be deterred. It is interesting to note, for instance, that in interviews after the Gulf War Saddam Hussein and his staff pointed out they did not believe the United States would risk lives for Kuwait. Having a powerful Air Force means controlling air, space, and cyber So, what kind of Air Force must we build in order to keep these commitments? I'll begin by reiterating what every airpower theorist from Mitchell to Moseley has said; the essence of airpower is control of the air. If you cannot control the air, and I will add space and cyber space to that, you cannot derive all of the other benefits that airpower provides across all of the domains. Control of the air is the heart of airpower. Today we have the capability to control the air over most parts of the planet. But that capability is slipping. Any country with money can buy, and many are buying, integrated air defenses, SA-20s, and Russian and Chinese fighters capable of competing with 4th Generation aircraft. How effective are these capabilities in the hands of weak states? As one data point, let me tell you that in our war with Vietnam, hardly a powerful state, we lost 2,200 aircraft - over 1400 to ground fire/antiaircraft artillery, 110 to surface-to-air missiles, and 67 to aerial combat. If we do not keep our technology far enough ahead of our opponents, we will find similar circumstances in the next few decades. Building 5th Generation aircraft that are able to overcome modern defenses will require investment over decades. Being able to convince the world that we can employ our 5th generation aircraft globally will require a sufficient number of aircraft. I could also talk about the need for tankers and bombers. But, given the age of our current inventory, I think the need for these capabilities is so self-evident that I will forgo any further comments other than to say it is critical that we field the new long range reconnaissance and strike aircraft as soon as possible. But I would like to say a few words about space and cyberspace. Today our operations are part a network that extends from the ground to space through cyber space. Soldiers on the ground and sailors on the seas can trust the signals from their blue force tracking devices because we control the part of cyberspace that links our airplanes, satellites, maritime and ground. This dominance we maintain across these domains multiplies our power many times over. The mosaic created by shared information across these domains is the most revolutionary event in recent military history. But our control of space and cyberspace is being contested. Our satellites are increasingly vulnerable, as is the supply chain for our hardware and software for our major weapon systems. If we hope to maintain our dominance across any domain, we must understand how to fight in space and cyberspace; and to integrate these smoothly with Air, Maritime, and Ground. If we allow our opponents to come to dominate operational cyberspace in the next war, winning will be exceptionally challenging. That is why we must focus resources into learning how to fight in cyberspace. It's not just about absorbing intelligence, its about fighting in this domain. Knowing what we know, why have we moved so slowly to recapitalize our inventory and enter the cyber age? Why are we allowing our opponents to eat away at our lead in technology? The answer is that the Air Force has been constantly at war for over 18 years. The cost of those wars has been directional, putting a premium on today's fight, as it should be until the fight is in hand. Each year we have decided that we can put off recapitalizing for yet one more year, asked maintenance to reach a little bit more. Almost two decades have come and gone. But understand this, we must begin resetting our forces while still engaged. Many of our near peers have increased their investment in strategic forces, and though painful, we can't let our strategic margins erode. We can never get to a position where our advice to the President is, "I'm sorry, we can't keep our commitment this time." When that happens, we will surrender some corner of the earth to terrorists, or coercion, or genocide. We will no longer be able to put a silver cloud above that part of the planet. And if we do not take action that dark spot on the globe, that part of the map where airpower cannot go, will grow. This is, by the way, a fate that threatens all great powers...to weaken and decline. It was Britain's fate as it gradually surrendered its naval stations in Asia in the prelude to WWII. It was the fate of Rome as it found its garrisons overstretched in Europe when its great network of roads fell into disrepair. But it need not be the fate of the United States, not in our lifetimes, not if we are willing to prevent it from happening. Some are now calling for a floor in the percent of GDP to be put towards defense, as nationally there is an understanding that a part of the margin erosion must be laid to economic policy. Sovereign Options If maintaining control of the air through all of the methods I have described above is our first duty, our second duty is to use that dominance to provide sovereign options for the nation. Again and again over the years we have seen airpower used in fantastically creative ways to solve the nation's problems. In World War II, it allowed us to contribute to the war while we massed our ground troops in Britain and Africa. During the Cold War, it allowed us to deter the USSR while its economy slowly imploded. Numerous times during that war and since, the mere movement or basing of air assets has been enough to frighten our opponents into backing down from violent threats. In the current struggle, airpower has allowed the United States to exercise its generosity by providing humanitarian assistance to far-flung countries. In the wars of the 1990s, it allowed the United States to win without subjecting our own ground troops to peril. In Iraq, it allowed us to contain a dictator for a decade with comparatively little cost in US blood or treasure. Even the technological spin-offs from the Air Force benefit the nation. For the past few years, as the Air Force has watched its fuel bills triple, it has led the way in promoting alternative fuels and in other ways reducing energy costs. These innovations have not only benefited the service, but are spurring innovation across the airlines and beyond. Charge and Commission So, here is my charge and commission to you. Everyone in this room is a strategist. As strategists, you need to understand the Air Force's mission and the role it plays in national defense. As the Air Force's strategists, it is also up to you to communicate this mission inside the service and beyond. Currently, the nation is asking why we have an Air Force. They wonder what we're doing in today's war. Some aren't even sure if we'll be needed in the future. They are asking, and if you don't tell them, no one else will. I also ask more of you. We have, I believe, become somewhat complacent. We've been thinking of ourselves as on top so long we haven't spent as much time thinking as we should have. We haven't been as willing to change as we have talked about. That time is over. If we are to fulfill our duty to the country, we are going to have to do a lot of thinking. You are going to have to do a lot of thinking. You are going to have to figure out how to restore accountability where it is needed. You are going to have to figure out how to fulfill our duty to the present without failing in our duty to the future. We've been calling our program to promote innovation "smart operations." It's up to you to make this happen on an Air Force wide scale. Conclusion In conclusion, I will say this. In my time as Secretary of the Air Force, I have been overwhelmed by the dedication, motivation, and commitment of you, our Airmen. You are nothing short of remarkable. There is no limit to my confidence in your ability to succeed. Thank you. May God bless you and may he continue to bless our great Air Force, and the Nation we serve. I would like to take your questions.