The AFA Warfare Symposium hosted a session called “Joint Warfighting Requirements: The Forces Needed to Fight and Win” on March 7, 2023. The panel featured Gen. David W. Allvin, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force; Gen. David D. Thompson, Vice Chief of Space Operations; and Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.), Executive Vice President of AFA, as the session moderator. Watch the video or read the transcript below.
Voiceover:
Ladies and gentlemen, Airmen and Guardians, welcome to the next session of the AFA Warfare Symposium. Please direct your attention to the stage and welcome AFA Executive Vice President, Major General Doug Raaberg.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you. Thank you for joining us for today’s discussion on Joint Warfighting requirements. The force is needed to fight and win. Now we’re very fortunate, and this is an incredible alignment, to be joined by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General David Allvin. And to my right is Vice Chief of Space Operations, General David Thompson.
Now to set the scene, both of them sit on the Joint Requirements Oversight Committee. Now on the JROC they are the direct representatives to the joint force on all current and future capabilities the Air and Space Forces provide combatant commanders. In short, they lead an important role to articulate strategic and operational imperatives that drive force structure and force presentation to warfighting commands.
Now, according to a recent intelligence report from Stratfor, it’s entitled Navigating the Risks of a Multi-polar World that says, “The reemergence of a multi-polar world and rising peer competition is changing the global security and business landscape. Defense budgets are climbing. National security considerations are driving geo-economic competition. Global norms and expectations that have held for decades are now in flux. Complex supply chains woven since the end of the Cold War are fraying. Adapting to the shifting global landscapes requires rethinking,” as you’ve heard this morning, “And rethinking longstanding assumptions, but also understanding the geopolitical forces driving change and how to prepare for potential conflict as a result.”
The real question is how do you rethink as a force provider to organize, train, and equip the space and air forces at the strategic level against this backdrop of this ever contested multi-polar world? Well, that’s what we’re going to tackle here on this panel this morning. And so what I’d like to do, gentlemen, is please hand it over to you all. General Thompson, let’s take it out to the Lagrange point, if you don’t mind, and lead us off with perhaps some overarching insights to what is a really emerging concept called the Joint Warfighting Concept. Sir?
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Okay, thanks. Thanks, Doug. Thanks for hosting this panel today and to all of AFA. Thanks for this vitally important symposium and professional development opportunity for our Airmen and Guardians. And so that really is, as General Raaberg described, the responsibilities of the JROC. There are many things that we deal with every single day and many places from which we derive our duties. In addition to those systems and capabilities we deal with today, part of where we get our charter from is creating capabilities to do what in the future. And one of the key elements of that is, as Doug said, a conceptual framework for how in fact we’re going to conduct operations. The Department of Defense has been on a four-year journey to create a new concept that we call the Joint Warfighting Construct. But this is not the first time the Department of Defense has done it. It has done this for decades.
In fact, the first conceptual framework for an operational approach that I remember came out of the early 1980s when the United States Army and the United States Air Force got together and created the concept of the AirLand Battle. And really what that conceptual framework said was, “We should expect, as our pacing challenge, to fight a large, conventional, mechanized army that has equipment on the ground and in the air that’s relatively equivalent as ours, but is likely going to be superior in number.” And that operational concept said, in short, although there was a lot of development and a lot of supporting there with it, it said in short that the ground forces were going to be engaged in active maneuver defense on the front lines while air forces went deep and interdicted the rear echelon so they could not come in and reinforce those frontline forces after which the ground forces would defeat the enemy elements in detail. That was an operational and conceptual framework for how we were going to conduct warfare in the 1980s.
That was subsequently replaced in the early part of this decade by the United States Air Force and the United States Navy in a concept called the AirSea Battle that talked about a capable, but probably not completely equivalent near-peer adversary, trying to deny us air and sea access to an area of conflict and contest. And the Air Force and the Navy got together and created this concept and framework for developing capabilities called the AirSea Battle. Well, in 2019, the Secretary of Defense said, “It’s time for an updated concept for how the joint force expects to approach warfare in the future.” And so over that four-year period, a lot of work has gone on. In order to develop that, also in addition to understanding who and what you are, you need to understand the strategic environment.
And so the pacing challenge associated with this Joint Warfighting Construct really said, “I have a peer adversary, perhaps a near-peer adversary, that is very capable on land, at sea, in the air, in space, and in cyberspace, that I will likely have to contend with. It’s likely that I’m going to be fighting an away game that that adversary will be fighting in its backyard. And that this battle will occur, this conflict will occur on a scope and scale that is unprecedented in the long history of warfare.” Not necessarily in geography and numbers, but we’re talking about thousands of targets over billions of cubic miles on land, at sea, in the air, in space, and in cyberspace that we will have to identify, track, target, and defeat at a size, scope, speed, and scale that has never hereto for been experienced.
And in order to do so, we will have to very, very tightly integrate air, lands, sea, space, cyber, and special operations forces together in a way that we have never done before. And in essence, that’s what the Joint Warfighting Concept does and tells us to do. It says that is how we expect to fight in the future. The next step becomes how do you decompose that concept into supporting concepts into capabilities required and then build programs and training and doctrine to be able to adapt to that concept. And I think at this point I’ll let my wingman, Dave Allvin, talk a little bit about that decomcomposition and what we have to pursue to do achieve that concept.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
So general Allvin, please take us back inside the JROC because you both sit with the Army, the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and you really grapple these issues. So what are the supporting concepts that belie the Joint Warfighting Concept?
Gen. David W. Allvin:
Well, thank you. And I’ll add my thanks to Doug and team for putting this together. This is fascinating. It’s always great to be in a room with my wingman, DT. We do sit in sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger rooms with the JROC, but the idea that we are still finishing each other’s sentences and understanding, at least to an extent that we can advocate on behalf of, while we’re our own service, we’re part of the one team, one fight. And so we become, I think, a more powerful force in that room with all the other service representatives because we’re of like mind.
I will tell you that DT did a great job about really articulating the contours of this Joint Warfighting Concept. But the devil being in the details. When you go back to the very apt description on AirLand Battle and AirSea Battle, those were what one might call multi-service concepts, but not necessarily one that fully captured the totality of what the joint force was going to need to do. And DT talks about that in what the Joint Warfighting Concept entails.
Now, let’s get to the business of actually executing it. There are things that I think in past concepts that have been set aside because they were assumptions that may be held but no longer do. And when you get the advent of the changes in technology with massive increases in computing power with this idea of cyberspace being woven into everything we do, space going from a benign domain to a warfighting domain and the ubiquity of the things that we depend on for space, the potential enemy learning a lesson about how the American way of war happens, some of those assumptions can no longer obtain. And so one of the things, I think, as we look through our three plus decades of war gaming, the most important part of the war game wasn’t necessarily the logistics or the C2 or those other elements. It was just, “Let’s get to the fight and see what happens.”
But one of the brilliance of this Joint Warfighting Concept in its development and now in its maturation is these four supporting concepts. These battles that we talk about are going to be essential in order to attain success in the overall concept. And these are in the area of fires, integration of fires, information and having that advantage and decision advantage, in logistics, contest logistics, and in command and control. I would posit that if we spend enough time and give those their due attention, then even if the main concept isn’t exactly right or it has to shift or adapt over time, we’re going to be ready to go. So when we start thinking about solving for agility in this concept, if we get these four supporting concepts right, and again with fires, information, and logistics, and C2, if we get those right, then even as the adversary changes capabilities or launches some new approach, we’re still going to be in good stead.
If we ignore them and just focus on the capabilities that we think are going to be required for the main fight, we won’t get to the main fight. And that’s why I think those supporting concepts are so important. And they’re also well aligned with the department of the Air Force’s operational imperatives. One of the reasons why Secretary Kendall put in operational imperative number seven, we need to be able to get out of town. And oh, by the way, as you heard our Chief of Staff of the Air Force talk about in the freshly signed Air Force future operating concept, one of the fights is to get into the theater. We recognize that. We’ve put light on it. We put intellectual energy against it. And we ensure that one of the things that potential adversaries are trying to keep us from, which is just keep us away for long enough until there can be a fait accompli and then maybe we’ll sue for peace, or I find a better alternative because they’ve kept us out. Not permanently, but just long enough.
And if you don’t pay attention to that, that could happen. So this idea of being able to get out of town, get into the theater, that’s part of operational imperative number seven. Being able to have logistics under attack, contested logistics. Logistics is… Everybody assumes it’s there because it always has been. That’s a flawed assumption at this point if we don’t change the manner in which that we execute it. Part of that is right in line with operational imperative number five. Resiliency. Resilient basing. When we talk about being able to hit moving targets at scale, that’s fires. That’s fires integration. Operational ABMS. Operational imperative number two. That’s very much command and control. But all of those things are understanding those long-standing parts of warfare that need to be updated for the current security environment and the changing character of war.
And where I feel confident that as we pursue those four supporting concepts as an Air and Space Force, I think it’s natural. There’s not a great departure from the direction that we’re heading because this changing character of wars we’re seeing, it privileges agility, speed and tempo, lethality, resilience. We grew up with that. Our Air and Space Force is, that’s our stock in trade. And so as we integrate into the Joint Warfighting Concept as an Air and Space Force through these four supporting concepts, I think it’s not much of an adjustment for us. There’s acceleration, which we like now; there’s moving forward, but we have heat and light applied to these four supporting concepts, which I think will make any future foreseeable overall Joint Warfighting Concept that much more successful.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
So after listening to the Secretary Kendall, Chief Brown, and you’re listening to Chief Saltzman, let’s put it all together now. Would you both kind of expand on the interconnectedness of what you said, General Thompson, to what you said, General Allvin, and talk about that interconnected part? General Thompson?
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Sure. Thanks. As General Allvin described, as you decompose the warfighting construct in it, you decompose it first into those supporting concepts, those battles for advantage, fires, joint all-domain command and control, information advantage and logistics, by law that JROC is required to identify gaps in capabilities that prevent us from being able to effectively implement those specific supporting concepts. And so we ensure we understand the capabilities we have today to support those concepts and we maintain them. We identify the capabilities we may not have, but we have active programs to go obtain those capabilities and we ensure those continue. And then the last piece is to say, okay, what are those gaps and how do we go get them?
But after you’ve done that decomposition and the individual pursuit of those capabilities required, you can’t let them exist in stovepipes. And that’s therefore then when you go to how do these architectures fit together to inter-operate, what does the doctrine say that says how you put them together, General Allvin talked about the need to war game and see how they fit together and exercise. You integrate them back together in the routine activities of both of organized training and equipping in that execute or exercising your forces in order to achieve the integration that you want.
And as an additional note to what General Allvin said that I firmly believe and agree with, if we get these supporting concepts right, it leads to incredible flexibility. And as an argument in that case, I would say that the success that the United States of America and its partners and allies saw in the first Gulf War in 1990 and ’91 was because of the work it did in the 1980s in the AirLand Battle. And thankfully we never had to fight the fight we were preparing for, but it made us very ready and capable for the fight that came upon us there in the first Gulf War.
Gen. David W. Allvin:
Yeah. If I could follow up on that because DT really set the groundwork here for… The point that I want to make is this is going to be challenging for the joint force to do because it is a significant shift. And big organizations don’t cotton to change that easily. And as we try and navigate this terrain of change, the most comfortable thing is to make the new parts, the new things that you’re doing sort of look like the old because you knew how to do that. So incremental change. And it’s easy for each of the services. This is really about, again, our role on the JROC, which is this panel’s really about joint requirements.
Service cultures run deep. Understanding how you envision yourself as a service as part of the Joint Warfight and understanding how you may have to reimagine that. Now, we’ve had a history of some successes and some less than successful endeavors as we’re looking towards trying to develop a more effective joint fight sometimes at the expense of a service. That’s not something that’s very comfortable. But here’s why I’m confident that we can do this. I believe that from the top-down, from the President’s national security strategies through the National Defense Strategy, through the supporting national military strategy, through the Joint Warfighting Concept, through the supporting concepts, through the Air Force future operating concept and the secretary’s operational imperatives, there is alignment like I have never seen in my over three and a half decades.
There’s an alignment about the threats that the pacing challenge offers us, pacing challenge and acute threat as well. There’s this alignment with what the changing character of war is putting in front of us. And so as we are able to evaluate these things, we’d like to evaluate them on facts and not emotion. We like to evaluate them on a common set of assumptions rather than [inaudible 00:18:49] centric assumptions. And sometimes that’s just plain tough. And so I would say early on, not to be pejorative to our predecessors, but just the environment wasn’t conducive to a super effective JROC that was able to put a value proposition against joint requirements versus something that a service wanted to advance that might have some byproducts that could affect a joint warfight, but was really more towards helping their service as a core continue what they did.
And I would say that early on in history’s eyes, it’s been a blink of an eye since Goldwater-Nichols. It’s been all of our career. But in history’s eyes, it’s been a blink of an eye. And so getting the entire JROC to be as it was envisioned has been a long slog. And we can really credit some of the most recent acceleration of that to General John Hyten who was here yesterday. And when he was the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he actually, as a parting gift, one of the JROCs that we had, printed a little card for us. And that card was the Title 10 responsibility for the joint requirements [inaudible 00:19:54] and reminding us that this was our responsibility. This was not just, “Hey, the service wanted to do something. If you could squint real hard and you could see a joint application, put the stamp on it and off you go.” That doesn’t cut it anymore. That’s how you get inefficiencies. And inefficiencies and times of constrained budgets and accelerating adversaries just does not work.
And so we’ve been on that journey. And I think I can speak from our partner here in that we’ve noticed a big difference. We’ve taken a little bit differently. The functional capabilities [inaudible 00:20:25] joint capability [inaudible 00:20:27], as well as now these [inaudible 00:20:31] cutting portfolio management reviews. Really important. I think I’m [inaudible 00:20:39]. In upping the game. I could just yell too. Sorry.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
You have to do that occasionally, right? At JROC?
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Okay.
Gen. David W. Allvin:
That’s true. But in upping our game in being able to look at things and compare them against joint requirements. So now when we look at things, we truly have something to evaluate them against that the Joint Staff and that the Department of Defense has agreed to this Joint Warfighting Concept is the way. So it becomes a guidepost against which we can measure that we all agree to. We may not don’t like it, but we’ve agreed to because it’s been sanctioned through the alignment of all these strategies from the Defense Department down to the Joint Staff and down to each of the services. So I’m optimistic that once we have a common set of assumptions that we can compare capabilities against, we are going to be able to go faster to achieving better joint efficiency rather than service culture perpetuation that maybe has some joint effectiveness to it.
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Yeah. And I would add, and as Dave said, the JROC, in my opinion, had become over the year a little bit tactical and focused on details. And it’s not that some of that tactical and detail work was required and necessary. It absolutely is at times. But that became almost exclusively what we were dealing with. And so when General Hyten came in, and it’s been continued by Admiral Chris Grady, the current vice chairman, making sure we’re looking at the strategic problems, identifying those key gaps, and the next thing and the next place that the vice chairman wants to take us is helping to understand the priority of those gaps. Because I will tell you as we have looked at the Joint Warfighting Construct and its supporting concepts and the gaps that are resultant, frankly there are more gaps than we can afford to pay for. And there are more gaps than we need to pay for.
So the work of what are the most critical, what are the high priorities, what should we focus on first, which gaps do you need to close first before you can meet subsequent gaps, that’s the next step that we have to try and do and achieve is put a JROC stamp on a prioritized set of those gaps. And now the JROC does not have budget authority, programming authority. Right? That resides in the services and the service secretaries. But those same JROC members who do that business then go back to their services as service vice chiefs execute in the service with their service chiefs and the service secretaries their budget process. We sit in the Deputy Secretary of Defense Management Action Group that reviews those investments that identifies places for additional funding.
And so we intertwine those with the work that we do in the JROC and the budget process to ensure that while the services pursue what’s important to them and how they’re going to fulfill the needs of the concept and supporting requirements, we also help to bring to light the potential gaps that are of a critical nature that perhaps we haven’t addressed fully as an armed force and in our services.
Gen. David W. Allvin:
I want to add one thing if I could real quick because DT brings up a great point about identifying the gaps and finding that there are more gaps than we had anticipated. The other thing that happens through this new process of these CPMRs, these capability portfolio management reviews, is it allows you to look across sort of warfighting functions, if you will, and see what sort of capabilities we’re developing to see if we’ve maybe got duplication across services, because we can’t afford to be inefficient as a service or as a joint force either. So as those capability portfolio management reviews come to us on the JROC, we see that there are different gaps that might be being filled by multiple services and maybe not to the best effect. But sometimes they are complementary, but sometimes they’re just duplicative.
And I think that is another role to ensure that we are optimizing for this Joint Warfighting Concept with the right capability and the right capacity. And I think some of those are tougher conversations than others to be had to say that this particular service or agency is developing more of the capability that we need in capacity, and then maybe advising a service that you don’t need to invest that anymore. But again, to DT’s point, we don’t have authority. We can say that that is duplicative, but we’re not the ones within the JROC can say, “Buy less, buy more.” But the transference of this JROC into the DMAGs that also use the Joint Warfighting Concept as a litmus test for the value proposition of capabilities really helps us get more efficient as a Department of Defense.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
So we talked about, at the beginning, having to rethink warfighting concepts completely. So let’s marry that against speed, tempo, and agility. Sir, you still got the mic. How does that marry up against agile combat employment for all the services?
Gen. David W. Allvin:
Yeah. Maybe I’ll hit briefly on agile combat employment, but DT knows that it in a JROC I become somewhat of a one-trick pony on this talking about the idea of re-imagining. When we say we’re doing things because doctrinally that’s how we’ve done, and then the next sentence says, “Well, and doctrine is done out of the practice of doing things,” and well, that tells you that’s a couple decades before you change doctrine, before you can change, reimagine how you’re doing things. We can’t operate in that serial nature anymore. As we’ve said, it’s about speed, and tempo, agility, lethality, resilience. And some of the ways that we have been imagining how we are going to do our warfighting is not conducive to that environment. And when we talk about things like command and control, that’s one of the things I’ve really been hammering home. And I don’t have all the answers to, but I know we all need to think at it in a more imaginative way.
So we’re developing the capabilities within the operational imperatives to try and scale and hit multiple targets at scale. Yet we still do command and control by domain. We still have a JFAC, a JFMCC, a JFLCC. And so the manner in which we conduct operational C2 by domain is in itself it’s effective in keeping from a fracture side and deconfliction and in some cases synchronization, but maybe not optimization. We have capabilities out there that might enable effectors, if you will, that reside in one domain to be able to be used to attack targets that perhaps were the purview of another domain. So we’re cruising along, we’re looking to hit a target, and it turns out that we’ve already exhausted too many of these types of munitions and our shot doctrine is going to… It’s going to be really costly to go after that, but there might be an attacks over here or a surface vessel that can prosecute that target just as quickly. And we have the opportunity to know that at speed. But our current structure for doing command and control is not optimized to be able to make that decision.
So as we start developing the capabilities to fit into this Joint Warfighting Concept, those are some of the things that we need to reimagine, not only command and control, but how we integrate fires within that command and control, how we leverage the, as General VanHerck talked about, not only the sensor to shooter but sensor to decision maker that can help us get inside the speed and the tempo of the potential adversaries. So those are things that if we don’t bake those in to the way that we intend to support the Joint Warfighting Concept, we’ll just be building a better buggy whip when the Model Ts went out for a long time.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
Sir, fighting in through from space. So how does that change the rethink calculus?
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Yeah. First let me say that the air vice handicapped himself at 50/50 as whether he was going to go into the Joint C2 rant. I was at 90/10 and I’m glad he did it because he’s right. But when you think about the environment we’re going to be in, especially in the early days of a conflict that we would see against an adversary that’s as sophisticated, advanced, and capable in a near-peer, we are going to struggle greatly to have access to the air, to the sea, to land spaces around that matter. The way we are going to do that at scale and the scope that we will need to do leading up to in crisis and ultimately in conflict, the way we are going to have to do that, and the only way we will do that is if in those early days we succeed through space.
And you saw that in the previous remarks by General Saltzman when he showed you the air picture over Ukraine. The space picture doesn’t look that way. It’s crisscrossed hundreds and thousands of times every single day with all sorts of space sensors. And so space is going to bring you that presence and that ubiquity and the ability to react at speed and scope and scale with agility, but it means that those capabilities have to be resilient and we have to have the ability to pass all that information back quickly, decide how to deal with those targets, those threats, make them targets, and then respond with long-range weapons. As in the early days of the fight, we turn that denied area into an area where we’re going to thrive and win. Without space, we won’t do it.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
So let’s talk money for a second because the Secretary alluded to the fact that the 2024 budget rollout is expected this week. We know that plenty of analytical rigor has gone into the services budgets for the Department of the Air Force. So the real question is how well postured are we with the DAF budget, the Department of Air Force, in alignment with Joint Warfighting Concept?
Gen. David W. Allvin:
I think we’re aligned very well. I am optimistic. The thing about it is though this is not a one-and-done. We are happy with how we did in ’23. I believe whatever success that we will have with the FY24 budget, first of all, when the President puts a cross and then as Congress deliberates on it, is the alignment that we have with those capabilities we’re developing, we’re pursuing the alignment with the Joint Warfighting Concept with the National Defense Strategy. It’s very, very strong. That’s part one. And I think it goes back to the changing character of war is coming back, is coming to our wheelhouse. And so that’s one of the reasons.
But secondarily, and this is obviously something that Secretary Kendall has held in high regard for because he’s demanded this from the very beginning, it’s about analytics. You have to be able to have the analysis behind what you’re doing. And I think we’ve spent more time in this particular budget year, and maybe in the past one, in having those analytics to be able to support that and not just on a hunch or emotion, but really saying this is how what these capabilities will provide, impacts X, which impacts Y, which impacts Z, which helps win the joint fight. And I think that alignment and the support analytically has been one of the keys to whatever success we’re going to have in FY24.
I also believe that there is a propensity for smooth flowing over time, in which case people might look at it and go, “Well, we got the Air Force and the Space Force healthy and off we go.” This is not a one-and-done. These capabilities that we’re pursuing are… They’re continuously developing. And so those tough choices that the Secretary talked about this morning, those tough choices are going to have to happen year over year over year. But to the extent that we can continue to demonstrate the value of what we’re doing to now an aligned Joint Warfighting Concept and a National Defense Strategy, the more likely we’re going to have success in the future. And if we fail to do that, then we’ll get what we deserve.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
Absolutely.
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Yeah, obviously can’t get in front of too much budget wise. I think, as you all know, we’re in the last few days of getting ready to deliver that budget to the Hill. And you will hear in the next days and weeks that follow the details at an excruciating level of information. But it clearly, I think the budget that’s coming reflects what is a now multi-year trend of a recognition that there’s more that we have to do in space, there are more capabilities that have to be there, that they are closely tied to and aligned, as General Allvin said, with National Security Strategy and the National Military Strategy and the National Defense Strategy all the way down through the Joint Warfighting Construct. So two things in that regard.
Right now, my largest concern is to make sure that we in the United States Space Force are good stewards of that money and execute effectively the resources the nation will provide us and has provided us to deliver the capabilities that are required. The second thing is, especially in the little insular cabal of the national capital region, we focus so much on the fact that the sky is falling and there’s this problem or that problem or we have to get after the following challenge. We have been looking at recently, by most measures, some of the largest defense budgets in history. And if we all can’t address the nation’s security and the challenges we face with some of the largest budgets in defense history, maybe it’s time for the nation to find some other people to do our business.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
So General Allvin, you’ve already kind of touched on all the alignment of the seven operational imperatives. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to throw it over to General Thompson. Sir, really, how well do you see the Space Force and the alignment of the seven operational imperatives to the joint [inaudible 00:34:48]?
Gen. David D. Thompson:
Well, I think there’s tremendous alignment. And one of the things that I didn’t talk about initially with these sorts of operational frameworks are they not intended to rigidly align and make sure everybody puts their service culture and their capabilities and the way they look at a problem into that bucket in those four buckets. The key is to ensure, it is to guide and synchronize those activities. And so if you look at the Joint Warfighting Construct, if you look at the four supporting concepts, and then you look for example at the Secretary’s operational imperatives, if you can’t look at those operational imperatives and see where they fit into the four functional or the supporting concepts, come up and I’ll help you with that afterwards. If you can’t have listened to General Brown’s remarks today about the core functions of the Air Force and see how they support that, I said, the little bit extra studying. If you can’t see what General Saltzman presented today and see it there, then you need to go back and study it a little closer.
So if you make people align rigidly in terms of phraseology and the way you talk about it and in an exact nature, what you end up with is homogeneity rather than a composite force and a composite structure. And the engineer and the nerd in me says the composite structure is always by weight and strength and capability, much, much more strong and resilient and capable than the homogeneous force. So it aligns the activities of services and others. It makes sure we’re moving in the same direction. But the intent is never, “We should all look the same, we should all speak exactly the same, and we should suppress our service cultures as we pursue it as a joint force.” That is never the intent or the desire.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
Going fast. Less than five minutes. Sir, message to your industry partners, what would you say?
Gen. David W. Allvin:
Let’s talk. Let’s continue the dialogue. And again, the Joint Warfighting Concept itself is classified. We’re dealing with the things that we can and can’t say. I would say as a separate piece under Secretary Austin and Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks, there’s an aggressive move to start working on… to continue working on that, the likes of which I haven’t seen in a long time. But we still need to make sure that we have the right types of dialogues with our industry partners so we can work together as a team because we all are after the same goal at the end, is to make US America stronger and safer. So that specifically as… And also know that sometimes if we aren’t talking to you is because we haven’t fully formed the problem yet.
But I think we’re getting better at that as a department under Secretary Kendall because he understands that in ways that few secretaries have in the way that how we need to develop the maturity of the questions to ask rather than the presumption of, “We have the answers now, go build it.” And I think that’s seeing that in the manifestation of how he’s put Luke Cropsey in charge of with the integration on the ABMS piece and across all the operational imperatives He’s paired up not only the operators with the tech folks, but the acquisition folks. So we can have that right type of dialogue.
And I want to… This is totally a non-sequitur, but I didn’t want to let us off the stage without saying this. And this is to my partner here, DT. I was sitting in a JROC a few weeks ago. And they were talking about the resilient space architecture and the importance of it, excuse me, to one of the other topics that we had that day. And I thought to myself, man, if I was sitting here four years ago and I didn’t have the space vice here, how fast, how well would we be able to do this and get after the Air Force part of the operational imperatives, but be able to also work forward with what space does? And I think so for any people who have any doubts about better or worse, I believe that we would be in a much worse position. We would not be nearly as far along intellectually or advocacy wise if we didn’t have these two well-aligned but separate distinct services. And I think we see that in the JROC every day. And I shudder to think if I had to carry that alone nowadays. So anyway.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
Gerald Allvin, one team, one fight. General Thompson, so what’s your parting words to our industry team members?
Gen. David D. Thompson:
To industry? Absolutely let’s talk and two things. We need your help critically in two areas… Well, more than two areas, but these two areas. The first is help us… General Allvin talked about the change in the nature of war. Chief Brown put up Douhet’s quote, “Help us leave behind the capabilities that do not adapt and will not service well as the nature of warfare changes. And then ask us to show you the capability gaps and demand of us that we let come forward with innovative ideas and approaches to fill those gaps that we may not have thought of.” That’s what I’d say.
Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):
Well, generals, this has been very stimulating, especially when you’ve taken us to the strategic and the operational level of warfighting. First of all, on behalf of the Air and Space Forces Association and your entire team out here in the audience, thank you and thank you for a very, very invigorating panel. Let’s please give our guests a big hand.
Voiceover:
That concludes this morning’s session. Lunch is now available in the exhibit hall until 13:00 at which time sessions will resume. While in the exhibit hall, please take the opportunity to visit with over 100 of our industry partners. They are looking forward to your visit and are most interested in what you have to say. Please make your way back to the Aurora Ballroom by 12:55 to be sure you’ll get a seat. Have a nice break and we’ll see you back here soon.