Vision for the Future of War

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It's great to be here and to be talking with this audience. Isn't Puerto Rico beautiful?

When I was last in theater, I met members of the Air National Guard from Puerto Rico who, for the very first time, deployed into theater. They were a part of a total force, with active, Guard and Reserve serving together. In this case they were operating C-130s, conducting a mission to resupply coalition forces with near precision airdrops. Thanks for your service and keeping the standards to directly integrate and accomplish that mission. This is the Guard at war in our Air Force.

As we flew in yesterday over those beautiful beaches, I was reminded of where I grew up in Florida, right on the coast, and where I'd like to return some day. I thank the Florida Guard who turned out after hurricanes Charlie and Jeanne marched across the state with the force of a marauding army. The last time I was in Brevard County, there remained some blue FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) roofs. This was a Guard on duty in domestic tragedy, and I want you to know you are appreciated.

There are untold stories from New Orleans about the National Guard helping in so many ways to restore confidence in American citizens...I say well done.

I was recently out west, and listened to reports of the fires and the impact of the Air Guard and Army Guard as they moved to duty stations to assist when and where they could. You, as leaders of these fine people, citizen Soldiers and citizen Airmen, should be proud.

In these beautiful surroundings, it might be easy to forget that we're a nation at war. But I doubt that any of you in this room have forgotten.

I am going to say some words about the Air Force today, but before I begin, I want to thank you all for another part of the Guard mission -- you have moved from a strategic reserve force, much closer to an integrated operational force. With the Air Force Total Force Initiative, we are now creating associate units with our front line fighters and transport aircraft.

On our forward operating bases, it is hard to tell Guardsmen from active personnel. We have Guard wing commanders running bases in the Middle East, and Guardsmen in positions right down to the flight line mechanics--and what remains of Bob's uparmor shop at Balad. We are reliant on Guardsmen to bring power to the battlefield. This requires sacrifice on the part of the principals and their families. This is the Guard operationally integrated, and at war. I want to tell you that your sacrifice is deeply appreciated. Sometimes it may not seem like it, but your country knows what you are doing and depends on you. I thank you for your service. I thank you for your sacrifice.

We are now to the point where we want to have Guardsmen join us at the point of accession -- at the Air Force Academy, at OTS (Officer Training School) at Maxwell (Air Force Base, Ala.), and in the intermediate service schools. We regard you as a part and parcel of the larger citizen force that is our all volunteer Air Force. You'll hear more sprinkled about, but I want to change course a little here and talk about your Air Force at war.

I would like to talk with you today about what your Air Force is doing, particularly about the roles we are playing in the current war and where we're headed next.

In the time I have been Secretary of the Air Force, the single most important truth I have learned about the Air Force is that we are an Air Force at war, and we have been an Air Force at war for the better part of 17 years.

When I watch the news at night, I don't always get that feeling. The media has a tendency to focus selectively.

I also notice the media largely miss the crucial roles the Air Force is playing in the fight.

And the media seem to have forgotten that the Air Force has been in the Middle East, getting shot at, for the last 17 years. We commenced an air bridge for supplies, and have never stood it down. Most of you, however, know the story. In 1990, we went to fight Saddam and we never came home. Those of you who experienced operations Northern or Southern Watch understand what I am saying.

We are enormously proud of the accomplishment, and the performance our people have given. But that service has had a cost; it has taken a toll on our equipment and on our Airmen. I rarely associate genius and personnel, but in 1993 the Air Force recognized the nature of the long war and set about creating an Air Expeditionary Force structure that puts people and training first. This system enabled our 120-day rotation policy and allowed for volunteers to assist in theater, or at bases impacted by rotations, to continue their function. The total force response has been fantastic, as Guard and Reserve have essentially volunteered to fill many of the requirements, allowing us to minimize mobilization. But, as our force endures an entire career in an active engagement, when people talk of a long war, we know of what they speak.

For 17 years we have pushed our fleet and dreamt of recapitalization. The nation was thinking peace dividend, and we were at war. It has been paid with an inexorable decay in readiness, as we watch the sons and grandchildren of the original pilots fly airplanes built by Curtis LeMay in the 1950s. We watch as they are flown and patched and re-flown and re-patched like slowly petrifying fossils. Nightly we praise maintenance, but try as they might, recapitalization is the real answer.

We've all seen the need and multiple applications for the Joint Cargo Aircraft -- good for natural disaster relief and good for intra-theater transport. We look forward to the procurement resolution and ultimate fielding of JCA.

And there has been a price in personnel. I often say to manufacturers that it is the courage and dedication of our people that take the output of factories and depots and turn them into the world's finest fighting force. For 17 years that cost has been born by a generation of Airmen--active duty, Guard, and Reserve--as, again and again, they have selflessly heeded their country's call and left homes and jobs to go to the AOR (area of responsibility).

For 17 years we have dominated the skies above our enemies in the AOR. This achievement, however, does not make for good television. You can't see air dominance. It does not make for good newsprint. A headline like "The U.S. Air Force Provided Air Dominance Again Today for the 60th Year" just would not sell. But you know its value, and I daresay you might not take it for granted, but have every expectation that it will continue.

In fact, I sometimes think Americans have become so accustomed to the Air Force dominating the skies that they have forgotten why it matters. It is like an assumption in a plan similar to sea dominance. Some cannot understand why we have been so insistent about pioneering fifth-generation fighters to ensure for our Soldiers that the skies above them are friendly, and why we are working so hard to recapitalize our 50-year-old tanker fleet to keep the "E" in expeditionary.

Let me remind you why air dominance matters. It matters because the last time an American serviceman was attacked from the air was in April 1953. That was a long time ago. If you wonder why not being attacked from the air is important you can ask Saddam or the Taliban. They know what happens to militaries that don't control the air.

Let me tell you why else air dominance matters. In the way of war that is emerging in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have become dependent on airpower. Combat in both countries has illustrated time and again the incredible value of situational awareness. Today, the entire joint force clamors for full motion video like that from a Predator. But these slow-moving and vulnerable UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) must be able to fly with impunity, if they are to work as intended. We must have air dominance to do that.

By the way, we are standing up Air National Guard squadrons across America to fly these [Predators] from their home stations, to satisfy the long war in the best way for our people.

There is another elephant in the parlor of the current war that the media, and even many of us, don't often talk about. Airpower is preventing the enemy from massing. The war would look entirely different if the enemy could mass...and it would look much, much worse.

I should also mention the growing power of integrated information between ground force commanders and non-traditional ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). As we arm UAVs, convert our fighters with Lightening and Sniper Pods, and equip our ground forces with rugged laptops connected to the aircraft, warfare is taking on a new form.

As this integration increases and as our precision increases, problems like fratricide and collateral damage decrease. And, when these tragedies do occur, better integration allows us to analyze causes as we would domestic tragedies, and perhaps eliminate that cause in the future.

And while air, space and cyber power are playing an important role in the current war, that importance will increase dramatically in the future.

I see the wars we are fighting, as vicious as they are, as wars more of choice. We could and did choose to go to war; we see this engagement to be in our national long term interests. We need to think, however, in terms where we could be engaged in wars not of our choice. This is where deterrence fails, and diplomacy fails, and the enemy believes we will not or cannot confront their assault, or their actions, because we are beatable.

There are those who don't see the mortal threats out there--the world is benign, and I truly hope it stays that way. Recently, as the Army described its stressed condition, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was asked what we would do if another enemy engaged us. His response was telling, "We have the power of the Air Force and Navy to respond, and dominate all threats."

Today, I agree -- tomorrow, I worry. Not only am I pushing for recapitalization, but our Navy is as well. Both of these strategic services are getting smaller, if more lethal. As my Russian friends used to say, at some point force quantity has a force quality all its own. We need your help and support to continue the needed recapitalization so that no one considers inviting the United States into a war not of our choice.

And I would like to say a few more words about mortal threats that go beyond the Middle East. The Chinese envision cutting our arteries, so to speak, in cyberspace. They have declared it a vital domain. They are investing to do so. The Russians have, we believe, tested their cyber capabilities and their willingness to engage against Estonia.

The Chinese hope to pose a mortal threat to our lifelines in space, our GPS, our communications, our electronic finances, even our cell phones. We ignore this threat at our peril.

In the air, the Russians have young and robust tanker aircraft -- the IL 76 --supporting their fighters and bombers in 24/7 expanding so-called "patrol" operations. The threat they hope to mount is clear, and their aims need to be strategically considered.

Indeed, some speak of the "big two" priorities: The War on Terror, and Rising China. I suggest there are three, with the addition of Rising Russia.

I would like to switch gears now and talk about the future of the Air Force and say a bit about the future of warfare as a whole and where the Air Guard fits into that picture.

The Air Force recently added cyberspace to its mission statement. Our old mission statement said that we fly, fight, and win in air and space. Now it says we fly, fight and win in air, space and cyberspace.

We have established an on ramp for a cyber command. It supports Strategic Command as a part of 8th Air Force. As we stand up the command, your Air Force is taking on a domain -- which we currently operate in -- just as we do in air and space today.

In modern warfare, controlling the sky and controlling the flow of information in cyberspace vastly increases military power in all other domains.

These days our greatest successes in Afghanistan and Iraq come from systems like ROVER (remotely operated video enhanced receiver), which allows sensors on our Predator and Reaper UAVs, as well as some of our advanced targeting pods, to send live video directly to users equipped to receive the datalink.

We developed this incredible technology to provide a shared picture of the battlefield with Soldiers and Marines on the ground. As the Army continues to integrate them [ROVER] into our ground forces, they will improve the entire Joint Force's situational awareness, and help air-to-ground coordination substantially.

And there are good reasons to pursue better information integration of the battlefield, both air-to-air and air-to-ground. Recently we've seen some examples of what happens when integration is lacking. During the recent Israel-Lebanon War, Israel could not distinguish Hezbollah's armed UAVs from its own.

We also see problems on the ground. With the capabilities we have today, we see a diminished need for ground operators to fight their way through ambushes unaided. Spherical situational awareness should allow us to maximize enemy casualties while we minimize our own. But change must come culturally as well as technically; concepts of operations must change to fully exploit the air dominance we enjoy.

These are problems with information and coordination that we can fix. We are headed toward a new type of war, but we aren't there yet. We need your help in altering the thought process from 360 degrees to joint spherical situation awareness.

While I'm talking about the growing importance of information in war, let me pull back and look at how connectivity can affect the big, strategic picture through reach back. And let me say that this growing trend toward reach back has some pretty significant implications for the Guard.

In a world of instant global communication, it is becoming less important to have a large U.S. footprint forward deployed. One of the great advantages of a networked force is that we can reduce our footprint abroad and move jobs formerly done in the AOR back to the United States.

On the Air Force side of the house, reducing our forward footprint is already well underway, though we could do more. Right now, we manage most of our space assets, control many unmanned aerial vehicles, and direct our cyberspace activities from within our borders.

Today we regularly engage the enemy from stateside locations. Almost all of our UAV pilots fly them from Creech Air Force Base, Nev. We can plan logistics, and we are already air-evacuating wounded from reach back locations. But we think we have not gone far enough.

Now consider the implications for our ground forces. What percentage of our ground forces in the AOR today are tail and what percentage tooth? How much of that tail could potentially come home if we moved parts headquarters activities to the U.S.? The utility of Army Guard would increase as we stayed stateside to accomplish activities now automatically moved forward. You can help.

I'll conclude by saying something that everyone here already knows. The United States needs the Guard. As time goes by, the country is becoming increasingly dependent on you. If anyone here is under the impression that your country or your Air Force values your services any less than those of active duty forces, let me dispel it right now. There is only one Air Force. There is only one U.S. military.

To all of the Guardsmen in the room from each of the services, I want to say thank you again for your incredible service. Today, more than ever, the United States relies on the commitment and patriotism of our citizen Soldiers.

Thank you all for the great things you are doing for the United States.

May God bless you and continue to bless this great nation.