U.S.-Norway Solid-Fuel Ramjet Passes Tests for Speed, Range

Oct. 6, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

A solid-fuel-powered ramjet missile—a joint venture of the U.S. and Norway—passed a number of tests in August that included achieving speeds in excess of Mach 2 and increasing range, the Pentagon revealed. The technology could be applied to a new kind of hypersonic propulsion as well.

The Tactical High-speed Offensive Ramjet for Extended Range (THOR-ER) “successfully fired several times,” demonstrating “robust” performance of the solid-fueled ramjet, the Pentagon said. The THOR-ER project has been underway since April 2020, with the goal of eventually developing hypersonic weapons.

A solid-fuel ramjet offers advantages over a liquid-fueled design because the plumbing and storage tanks—and associated weight and complexity—needed for fuel and oxidizer in the latter are not necessary. This is also more efficient than a solid-fueled rocket because a solid-fueled rocket must have oxidizer mixed into the propellant, while a solid-fueled ramjet uses oxygen in the ambient air to burn the fuel. The solid fuel is exposed to ambient oxygen in the combustion chamber and burns as it sublimates.

Versus a solid-fueled rocket, a solid-fueled ramjet, according to a hypersonics expert, “releases more energy” and can offer longer range.

“The trick,” he said, is the shaping of the fuel in the combustion chamber.

“If you start with a small hole,” such as a cylinder of fuel, “and burn outwards, the radius of the hole increases” as the fuel burns, “and thus, more fuel area is exposed,” increasing combustion. “That means thrust can increase in ways you might not want. So, more complicated geometries are often used.”

A solid-fuel ramjet also offers advantages in being storable for a longer period of time than a solid rocket and is safer to handle because it has no oxidizer and won’t explode, even if handled roughly, as long as the fuel isn’t exposed to air. A solid-fuel rocket with oxidizer mixed into the fuel is scarcely different from a bomb, the expert said. Solid fuel with oxidizer mixed in has “instabilities,” he said.

The tests were Aug. 17 and 18 at Andoya Space Flight Center in northern Norway.

“The test vehicle fired several times, showing the viability of ramjet propulsion technology and demonstrating significant increases in effective range,” the Pentagon said.

The tests met program Phase 1 objectives such as demonstrating “new high-energy fuels, advanced air injection, and throttling methodologies which will be essential for mission-flexible [solid-fuel ramjet] systems of the future,” the Pentagon said.

In the first flight, on Aug. 17, the vehicle demonstrated performance “across a wide range of altitudes and speeds,” the Pentagon said. The second test, the next day, “focused on a high thrust flight profile.” The vehicles flew to burnout and went into the ocean. Telemetry and data obtained are being used to evaluate the system’s performance.

Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, commended the THOR-ER team “for their outstanding work weathering the pandemic environment, continuing the development of this significant propulsion technology, and promoting continued science and technology collaboration with our partners in Norway.”

The U.S. needs to work closely with its allies “to ensure our joint force has the most cutting-edge capabilities on the battlefield,” Shyu said.

A solid booster accelerated the test vehicle to speeds beyond Mach 2. The vehicle then transitioned to ramjet mode.

Stein Nodeland, executive vice president for propulsion at Nammo (Nordic Ammunition Company) called the flight phase “a resounding success” in that it demonstrated “stable flight, robust ramjet operation, and a high thrust-to-drag ratio.” The performance conformed with pre-flight estimates.

The vehicle demonstrated a “high-speed, long-range trajectory,” Nodeland said.

“This is a real milestone,” he said. “While not the first ramjet vehicle, it is the first modern ramjet, with a potential for a great improvement in range, time to target, and agility.”

Stephen Farmer, director for advanced concepts, prototyping, and experimentation at the Naval Air Weapons Center, said “we believe the SFRJ is going to be a game-changer for the U.S. Navy and our allied partners.”

The THOR-ER program is a collaboration of Shyu’s office, the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, the Naval Air Weapons Center, Weapons Division, the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, and Nammo.

The Air Force is developing two air-launched hypersonic weapons—one air-breathing, the other a boost-glide weapon—and the Army and Navy are collaborating on surface-launched boost-glide hypersonic weapons.

Watch, Read: Maj. Gen. Doug Schiess on Space Operations, Today & Tomorrow

Oct. 6, 2022

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, commander of the Combined Force Space Component Command for U.S. Space Command and vice commander of Space Operations Command, participated in a one-one-one discussion about “Space Operations, Today & Tomorrow” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 19, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Voiceover

Please welcome our next speakers to the stage, Maj. Gen. Douglas Schiess, Commander, Combined Forces Space Component Command, United States Space Command and Vice Commander, Space Operations Command, United States Space Force and AFA’s Director of STEM Education programs, Col. Stuart Pettis.

Stuart Pettis

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our session on space operations, today and tomorrow. Space Operations Command, or SpOC, is just one of three Space Force field commands and the only one devoted to operations. It is responsible for everything from electronic warfare to satellite operations, to ISR. It is with a great honor that I get to have host a panel with my old boss, Maj. Gen. Douglas Scheiss, the vice commander of Space Operations Command. Welcome, General.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Hey Stu, thanks. Appreciate the opportunity in one of my hats to talk about the awesome women and men of Space Operations Command. I hope when you all realize that this is not Gen. Whiting sitting here, that everyone doesn’t start exiting the stage, because that was the plan and unfortunately due to a small family issue, everything’s OK. He couldn’t be here today. But it’s always great to jump in for my boss and so appreciate that. So thanks.

Stuart Pettis

Thanks, sir. So General, I just briefly touched on some aspects of Space Operations Command’s mission, however, how would you describe your mission in its critical contributions to national defense?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, thanks Stu. So obviously you mentioned that Space Operations Command is one of three field commands within the Space Force. When we reorganized or set up the Space Force, we did that with some intentionality to have an operations command, an acquisition and sustainment command, and then a training and readiness command.

So SpOC is the nexus between the Space Force and United States Space Command, where that obviously, that operational component of the Space Force. But then we are presented to U.S. Space Command to do that mission. We are the fight tonight force for our nation and for U.S. Space Command.

We do that in several different mission areas, but a little bit different than we were in under what the old Air Force Space Command, where all of the organize, train, and effect, or organize, train, and equip forces work together in Air Force Space Command. We’re now separated between those three field commands and that allows SpOC to just focus on operations.

And we do that in several different areas. Obviously one of the most important is our space domain awareness, knowing the domain that we’re in, knowing what is out there, what our adversaries and our allies are doing, so that we can be a better force to do that. We also do a very critical no-fail mission of missile warning and our support to missile defense and missile tracking.

And so we have to do that on a daily basis to make sure that we’re preparing for all, not only U.S. Space Command, but for all the combatant commands. We do electromagnetic warfare, we do command and control. We have to be able to command and control our forces for U.S. Space command.

And then most recently we’ve added some capabilities that were there, but put more emphasis on them in the defensive cyber capabilities that we have to do. My boss likes to say that cyber is the soft underbelly of space operations and so we have to make sure that we are cyber secure.

And then ISR, we have to be able to put forces together with intel-led operations. We also have SATCOM, we have GPS, and then we have the Protect and Defend mission. And so SpOC protects American, our allies, in, from, and to space and we do that on focused on combat, readiness, and our ISR-led forces.

Stuart Pettis

Awesome, sir. So Space Operations Command is now just two years old. Can you explain how you got here and where you are today and then what advancements are you going to make to Space Operations?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Thanks. Obviously the whole Space Force is light, lean, and agile and so when we decided to go into these three field commands and set them up, SpOC being the first field command that was set up, we’re just about ready to have our second birthday. So we’re a little bit younger than the Space Force.

Gen. Whiting would like to say that we’re, we’re now walking, we’re crying, we’re making ourself known as a two year old does. But we’re doing things to be able to put ourselves on the right path. One of the things that we did in that lean and agile, is we compress our command echelons. So if you go back to our time in the … Air Force where we had squadrons, groups, wings, numbered air forces, MAJCOMs, we now have squadrons that are mission-focused. But we also have Deltas, that’s our O-6 level of command that is mission-focused and then right up to the field command at that level.

And then those forces are presented to task forces and others across the combatant command. We also, in our area of preparing, partnering and posturing for the fight, we knew that we couldn’t be the old Air Force Space Command of the past. While we still have the Napoleonic structure of an S staff, we had to combine those together just by virtue of having less personnel. And we did that into three, kind of like the Space Force staff did into three deputy commanding general for different things.

So we had a deputy commanding general for operations, that has our 2, our 3, our 5, so our operations, our intel, our cyber and our nuclear forces, our NC3 forces. But then we have a deputy commander for support, that has our personnel, our logistics, our plans and programs. And then really interesting, we have an exchange officer from the Royal Canadian Air Force, Brig. Gen. Kyle Paul who took the place of Brig. Gen. Kevin Whale before him, that puts all of our innovation, our transformation, our chief data officer, our chief technology and information officer all together in one to make us better.

So we still have all the necessary forces, but those are under those three. And then probably the most biggest change that we’ve done, is we set up these mission area teams that are focused just on a mission area to be that headquarters element to support both up to the Space Force staff and across the U.S. Space command, but also down to our Deltas, to ensure that Delta commander who needs to be just focused on operations has the capability at the headquarters there to be able to do that.

Those are led by 0-6s or NH-4s or GS-15s. And we found just incredible synergies there to be able to do that. So that’s one of the areas. And then lastly, we helped stand up the other two field commands. So we had the honor of having STAR Delta in our formation and then helped as Maj. Gen. Bratton stood up STAR Command and we helped them by providing them resources until they could stand up.

And then obviously Space Systems Command was well on their way with Space and Missile System Center, but we transferred the launch mission to Space Systems Command. We wanted to make sure we did that without a fail. And so that was a big effort in our first year. Second year we pivoted to improving our warfighting posture. One of the ways we did that is we stood up combat training squadrons within each of the Deltas.

So while STARCOM does an incredible job of providing us the Guardians that are ready to do either space operations, intel, cyber or in the acquisition community. We then use those cyber training or those combat training squadrons to provide the next level of their weapon system and make sure that they are ready to do that—Are they doing advanced training in the congested and contested environment? And so we were able to do that.

A couple really interesting and cool things that we did is we stood up two Deltas that are focused on areas that we’ve always had to have but really weren’t concentrated. And that’s Delta 6, which is our cyber Delta. And it has a couple different missions. One is to continue the legacy of the old Air Force satellite control network, which is now the satellite control network, to provide that ability to contact and command and control your satellites, not just for the Space Force but for civil and our National Reconnaissance Office partners.

So they’ve continued to find ways to make that more efficient, because obviously with more satellites, we were getting to our capacity level. They’re working with our Space Systems field command to bring on phased array antennas to make that even better.

But one of the most important things they’re doing is they’re bringing on mission defense teams. So cyber squadrons are being developed. As a matter of fact, we’re going to bring on more cyber squadrons in the next year to partner with each of those Deltas, to be able to provide that defense of our cyber system.

One of the best examples of that is right now in Delta 4, we have a cyber squadron that is doing mission defense on the SBIRS architecture and making sure that that SBIRS mission, the Space-based Infrared System mission that the nation needs to be able to provide warning and decision makers time that is cyber secure. And so they are right there in the same building and the same ops floor with our space missile warning operators and they’re doing incredible job. We’ll continue to do that. Obviously we can only do a small portion of our whole structure, but we’re going to continue to do that.

And then even probably more revolutionary is our Delta 7, our intel surveillance and reconnaissance Delta that is bringing on space intel into our operations so that our operations can be intel-led. And one of the things that they’ve done is they’ve stood up detachments in each of our Deltas focused specifically on that mission.

So for instance, our electromagnetic Delta, Delta 3 that is performing those missions. They have an attachment of intel specialist Guardians that are not only intel professionals, but they know the electromagnetic spectrum.

And so they’re sitting in that kind of left seat, right seat, right there with the operators, making sure that they’re doing that. What that one thing has done right there is shorten the amount of time that we get intel from intel to the operators from days to minutes. And so an incredible job that the team has been doing, the men and women of space operations command in our first couple of years.

Stuart Pettis

Awesome. So sir, can you talk about what space operations looks like in the future and how do you plan to be successful in future conflicts with potential adversaries? Because we know that they’re also making significant advances in space operations as well.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, obviously if you’ve heard this morning from the Secretary and Gen. Brown and then others today, our near-peer competitors are continuing to modernize their forces and developing new long range conventional strike weapons that pose challenges to our defenses. And so like I said, we have to continue to have that intel-led operations, so that we can make decisions faster to be able to get ahead of those near peer competitors.

We also have to harden ourself with our cyber defenses, to make sure that, that’s not an easy way for them to get after us. We want to make it hard for them to be able to do anything to our assets. And then we need to … you heard a little bit from Gen. Saltzman and his testimony, how we’re going to force package our forces. So we have GPS operators that are flying the GPS constellation. Well, we need to make sure that they’re working with our SATCOM operators and our protect and defend operators.

So it’s not just one mission area working together, but we’re making sure that we’re working together to be the best that we can be. One of the things we also did, and actually then-Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback, I think I saw earlier today, Lt. Gen. Leah Lauderback and I know Maj. Gen. Select Greg Gannon in their S-2 capacity at the Space Force staff, helped SpOC stand up the National Space Intelligence Center and bring on Delta 18.

We’re the 18th member of the Intelligence Community. And so bring on that capability, to provide not only critical intel that maybe takes a little bit longer to get at that our operators need, but also providing that to our national authorities. And so that’s been a big thing that we’ve done over the last couple days.

But regardless, we have to continue all of those things, but we also have to bring on new architecture. We have to make sure that we don’t, as my good friend Maj. Gen. Deana Burt, some of our satellites are the fat kids in gym class. We need to make sure that we have a resilient force across and not so many fat kids, although those are really capable fat kids. But we need to make sure that we have a structured, layered architecture out there to be able to do our mission.

Stuart Pettis

Yes, sir. So sir, you recently transferred Army and Navy SATCOM capabilities into the Space Force. Can you speak about what that is done for the space enterprise and what there’ll be more capabilities transitioning?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, there’s some really interesting and cool things with this as well. So as you know, Stu, I happened to be the force ops commander a long, long time ago. And in that mission there, I actually had both flying the satellite bus and the payload, but not all of the payload. Some of that was still done out at other regional SATCOM support centers around the world.

We have now in conjunction with the Army, working together, have brought all of SATCOM into the Space Force and specifically into one Delta. And the really cool thing is here that Delta Commander is our first Army IST colonel that is commanding a Delta. And so that’s Col. Dave Pheasant and his folks at Delta 8. And so they have brought that on.

So last June, we brought over the Navy SATCOM mission from Point Magu. And so we stood up a squadron there, the 10th Space Operation Squadron, to be able to do that mission for the UFO, the ultra high frequency follow-on satellite. And then the mobile user objective system satellite MUOS, that brings that narrowband forces to all kinds of warfighters around the world.

And so that is now under Space Operations Command and they’re doing incredible job. And then probably even a bigger lift is we worked with our friends at Space and Missile Defense or Army Space and Missile Defense Command to bring over the wideband part of that. So for years, the Air Force Space Command and the Space Force for the last three years has been flying the DSCS, the Defense Satellite Communication System and then the wideband global SATCOM system.

But we’ve only really been flying the bus, making sure kind of from an airplane perspective, making sure the airplane’s in the right spot, but then folks in the back are actually controlling the payload. And that was the Army that was doing that. We have now brought that into our forces as well.

With that came about 300 personnel, both Army Soldiers and civilians that are now Guardians and Department of the Air Force civilians across the globe with all of our wideband satellite operation centers, that are all over the world to be able to command plan and control those satellite systems and networks and our regional SATCOM centers.

So now within Delta 8, the whole SATCOM architecture is within one Delta Commander and one field command, to be able to do that, integrate. We’re finding synergies already and being able to be able to take people off of one network and put them on another, that in the past could have happened, but was much harder to do.

So an incredible lift over the last year and I just want to thank the Army for the help that they did to be able to do that. And then on top of that, over the next year, we’re in talks with the Army, that we would bring over, I want to say JTAG, but I want to make sure I get it right, the Joint Tactical Ground Station Mission as well. And that will also bring all of that missile warning for all of the theater combatant commanders into one as well. And so we’re on the very beginning stages of that. But I know that our partnership with the Army was great for the SATCOM and I know it’ll be great for the Army as well. Or for the JTAG as well.

Stuart Pettis

Yes, sir. So sir, we’re entering a new war fighting environment. How do you prepare Guardians to fight in a domain as new as space?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, thank you. One thing we have to do is we have to be agile enough to be able to test and train and be able to change much faster. We have this new intel-led operations and how does that intel get into our training? And so my good friend, Maj. Gen. Bratton at STARCOM has a responsibility to provide us Guardians that are ready to do that, for SpOC, at least in the area of space operations, intel, and cyber.

But he also does that for the acquirers at Space Systems Command as well. So we have to work with them to make sure that they’re getting the intelligence, the threat is based and we’re getting that threat into our training as soon as possible. But we also have to be able to have a test infrastructure, to be able to get after that. We can no longer put a satellite up and say, “We’ll test it.” And then we’re just going to put it right into operations.

We have to be able to test that in an environment that shows that … that contested environment and be able to give our operators the ability to do that much like they do out at Nellis [Air Force Base]. Perform the missions before they actually perform the missions. And so we’re working with STARCOM on that.

They’re obviously trying to stand up a National Space and Training Center and we’re STARCOM’s probably biggest proponent to help them be able to do that. But we have to continue to do that. We also have to continue in our intel and our cyber and not just rest on our laurels, but bring them up to new capabilities as well as we train them. And so all space operations has to continue to evolve, learn from the threat, learn from the adversaries, and then be able to test and train in an environment that provides the best Guardians to do the mission that they need to do.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding, sir. So many leaders have also stressed the need to accelerate change, to keep pace with our potential adversaries. So what can your Guardians and Space Operations Command do to meet that challenge?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, it’s definitely a contested environment out there. One of the things you could look at is just the number of launches that’s going on. So since July 22, 46 U.S. launches. My good friend Steve Purdy and his team and Rob Long out of Vanderberg are launching satellites like you wouldn’t believe. But the Chinese are also launching satellites like you wouldn’t believe, and so are the Russians and so are the other nations.

And so we need to keep pace on that. We have to have automation and we have to have tools and analytics to be able to do things faster. Back when you and I were youngins, it was a keyboard and a mouse where we were flying satellites, but we were also doing a lot of stuff on chalkboards.

Stuart Pettis

Grease pens.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Grease pens and different checklists and making decisions with the best possible information. Well now the speed of data and things that we have, we have to harness that and to be able to have that. One of the things that Delta 4 in what we call a combat development team. So this is operators and acquirers put together to be able to get after innovative things that we can just bring on without a huge acquisition program.

One of the things that they did, was they brought on the Delta analysis report and tracking system. So it’s an application that helps them do basically what they were doing on pen and pencil and maybe some calculators, to be able to do that much faster. So when we’re in a situation with the number of missiles that we have seen in the environment today, they can make decisions faster. They can do things to be able to harness the capability of the missile warning constellation to be able to do it much better.

And so they’re continuing to do that, bringing on new areas. But we also have to make sure that we build Guardians that have that thought, that innovative thought, kind of run with scissors carefully. But make sure that they’re doing what we want and from the lowest level, that they have a voice and what’s the best thing to do. And so getting after that.

One of the other things we’re doing is we’re working to stand up Delta 15. That Delta will be the C2 delta for the National Space Defense Center, much like Delta 5 is that for the Combined Space Operations Center. When we stood up the National Space Defense Center, we kind of did that on the backs of some joint billets and other things. Well now as a service, we need to be able to provide a Delta that C2s that. Those two centers will work together, as I said, bringing that synergy to be able to not only provide those combat-relevant effects to the warfighter, but also making sure that we’re protecting and defending and working together.

So we need to continue to expand that Protect and Defend mission. The operators of Delta 4 and Delta 8 that do those high value assets, they need to be linked with the operators of Delta 9, that are eventually going to bring on that Protect and Defend mission. And so we have to find ways to be able to do that. So we’re getting after that with our Protect and Defend concept and just continuing to look at ways to be better.

Stuart Pettis

Just out of curiosity, sir, the CDT and Delta 4 that did that Delta analysis tool, what rank were those guys?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Probably some lieutenants and I definitely know some NCOs that were there to be able to do that.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Kind of off script a little bit, but our Supra Coder program within the Space Force enabled some of those guys to go get the training to be able to then get after some of this analytics. And then the thing that we have to do is just make sure that they can get access to the data now and making sure it’s cyber secure. But then they can get access to the data, use what they’re learning in the supra coder program, to then be able to get after some of these problems.

Stuart Pettis

That’s amazing, sir. So as the operational arm of the Space Force, what areas would you like to see more highlighted in the future?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, one of the things that we’re obviously working through is sustainment. And so if you haven’t been out to one of our ground-based radars, they’re aging. They have great software, not only Space Systems Command, but Air Force Material Command and Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has done a great job continuing to bring them up to the capabilities they need to do.

But as you know, they got some really old parts. And so we have to make sure that we have, as Gen. Whiting would say, space log-ins. Folks that know how to get after that. In my other hat, my other boss, Gen. Dickinson really wants to make sure that we are getting after when there’s an outage as fast as we can. And that we are finding innovative ways to bring those capabilities back. And so that’s just an area that we need to continue to work on.

Gen. Whiting likes to use the quote from Sun Tzu about if you know logistics, there’s order. I’m kind of getting it wrong. He’s like, “We need to have logistics to be able to get after our mission.” And so that’s an area that we need to continue to work on. A couple other areas that are in my other hat too that we do at Space Operations Command is our integration with the commercial partners.

And so one of the things we’ve stood up at CFSCC, the Combined Force Space Component Command is the cyber intelligence, our cyber integration center, or I’m sorry, commercial integration center, where we have folks together, each of those companies bring someone forward that is cleared to the top secret SCI level and they sit right in our area there at the Combined Space Operations Center and work together with us. And so we have to be able to do that, because one, we might get some of that leading intel from them if they’re seeing something that’s going on with their systems.

But we also may able to be able to provide them some information that we could only provide at a classified level. I got it, we got to get at over-classification. But sometimes because of intel stuff, they are classified. But being there together in the CSpOC, at the classified level, we can integrate together, we can synergize and we can make sure that we’re doing the right thing. So that’s been a huge effort and we’ll continue to do that not only from the Space Force, but from U.S. Space Command to bring on more capability to integrate with our commercial.

And then obviously, most important is our coalition and our allies and work together to be able to do that. I know that I talk on a regular basis with my counterparts in the U.K., Australia and Canada. As a matter of fact, they’re in our weekly and intelligence updates and we’re making sure that we are providing the information, because quite frankly we’ve got to get to where let’s bring their capabilities and then not get those … we don’t have to spend money on those and then we can provide capabilities to them and we’re a stronger force together. And so those are the things that we’re working on in the future.

Stuart Pettis

So this kind of near new to my heart, we know in a military service, we always have some unsung heroes out there. What parts of the mission do you wish the general public knew more about?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, it’s interesting. I actually was at a family event this weekend and someone said, “Hey, someone told me the bald guy over there is a two star in the Space Force.” And so he came over and started talking. I don’t know what he is talking about. I have plenty of hair, but—

Stuart Pettis

Sir, I’m jealous. That’s all I got to say.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

OK. But his first comment was, “Hey, what does the Space Force do? I don’t get this.” And so just talking to him to the fact that I asked him, “Did you drive to the event here using Global Positioning System?“ He’s like, “You mean the thing on my phone? Yes.” “Well that was brought to you by the Space Force.”

And so some of the unsung heroes are just the things that we do each and every day across op centers, across the world. The women and men of space operations come in that are up at places like Thule at two o’clock in the morning making sure that any missile attack is categorized and sent to the national leaders to make that decision.

The people that are at locations like Guam, or other locations, Diego Garcia, where they leave their families, or actually right now we have deployed forces forward, doing the mission that leave their families. Every, everyone that’s in an operation center doing that is an unsung hero.

And then I just have to give a shout out to the United States Air Force too, because all of our installations, we have to have the Air Force help us do our mission. And so those defenders that are on the gate that are providing defense for those operations centers, those logistics readiness squadron folks that are doing, those are the unsung heroes, making sure that we do the space operations that we need to do today.

Stuart Pettis

And by the way, you did mention the greatest base in the Department of the Air Force, Thule.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

I thought you’d like that.

Stuart Pettis

I love that. Yes. So sir, it’s been two years, or coming up on two years, for Space Operations Command. What are your proudest achievements?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, so I just said some of them, but what I would like to say is for those of us in the Space Force, it’s felt like we’ve been on high speed for about three years, just going as fast as we can to bring on this new service, to do all the things we need to do. And thankfully, I’ve got great colleagues up at the Pentagon that are doing the really hard work, bringing on new uniforms. And the things that are really important to our Guardians.

And so some people might joke, but that is a really important thing to our Guardians. But they’re also bringing on new capabilities for our personnel. How we rate our personnel, how we develop our personnel. And so they’re doing all that hard work with the STARCOM and Space Systems Command. And so there’s just incredible amount of work. But what I would say is to the average American, they didn’t see anything lost.

We continue to do every day what we need to do, to be able to provide defense of our space assets and really important, provide combat-relevant effects to the joint war fighter and protect them as well. And so that’s what I’m most proud of, is while we’ve been doing all of these changes and making sure that we’ve got everything set, organizational changes and things to do to be able to be that Space Force of the future, we didn’t miss a beat with the operations.

And so just an incredible job for both the Guardians and the Airmen, each and every day come to Space Operations Command or STARCOM or Space Systems Command and just do the mission. As Gen. Brown said, “Do the j-o-b.” And so I’m really proud of the efforts that they’ve done.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding, sir. We have a few more minutes. Are any other topics that we didn’t discuss what you’d like to address? Any other things? Anything? What’s keeping you up at night?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Wow, what’s keeping me up at night?

Stuart Pettis

Or are you—

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

No, I, well, I sleep pretty good. My wife’s right over there, so she can tell you if I sleep pretty good, but I sleep good because of what I just talked to you about. The women and men that are doing the mission every day. I do think we have to continue to push on our architecture. And I know that Lt. Gen. Guetlein and the Space Systems Command, along with all of our acquisition partners, we have the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Space Development Agency.

We have to look at architectures that are more resilient and more reliable. We’re still going to have those big satellite systems, but we can’t rely just on them. We’ve got to get after having more resilient, because the adversaries are looking at us. They’ve watched us for 21 years. They know that space is important to our joint war fighters. And so that they’re doing things to be able to take away those capabilities. And we have to do everything that we can to protect and defend those, while still providing those combat relevant effects to the war fighter.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding sort. So ladies and gentlemen, this is the time we have. Gen. Schiess, thank you so much for stepping in and it’s always, always a pleasure to have you up on stage and work with you. On behalf of, obviously besides people in the room, we also are streaming this, so we know we have young Guardians who are watching. Thanks for giving them some insight and what their future might be.

Thank you very much for that. And for audience members, one plea, I am your AFA director of STEM education programs. What that means is I oversee cyber patriot and seller explorers. Last year we had 22,000 high school and middle school students learning about space system design and cyber defense. We know we’ll have a couple hundred of them that will actually join the services.

So I’d encourage you to learn more about that. And for our corporate sponsors who sponsor us, thank you so much. And sorry I got to make an announcement. If you’re joining us for the outstanding Airmen of the Year reception tonight, we look forward to seeing you at the exhibit hall beginning at 1700. Otherwise, we’ll be back here at 08:20 tomorrow. Have a great day.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Thanks, Stu. Appreciate it.

Stuart Pettis

Thank you, sir.

Watch, Read: Top USAF Commanders on Countering Russian Aggression

Oct. 6, 2022

Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa; Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command; Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of Air Forces Central; and Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart, head of the 19th Air Force, all took part in a panel on “Countering Russian Aggression” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 19, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Voiceover

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 19th Air Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart. Gen. Stewart served previously as the Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Employment at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Good morning. I would like to warmly welcome you to the first Air, Space & Cyber … panel of AFA 2022. And what a panel it is. We open this symposium with a topic pulled directly from the headlines of every newspaper, policy document, and think tank article in America, and one which goes straight to the heart of America’s national security. Today’s panel is titled ‘Countering Russian Aggression.’ And to lead this discussion, we’ve assembled some of the greatest warriors the U.S. Air Force and NATO have to offer and whom I will introduce you to momentarily. To begin with, I’m Phillip Stewart and I’m the commander of 19th Air Force and extremely honored to serve as your panel moderator.

Now you might be asking, why is the 19th Air Force commander moderating a panel on countering Russian aggression? And that’s a fantastic question. The short answer is, I’ve been the 19th Air Force commander for about a month. But before that and when this panel was assembled, I was SHAPE’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Employment. SHAPE, which is the military branch of NATO, combines operations, the three, ISR, the two, nuclear operations, the 10, and cyber into a single directorate so that SACEUR has one single person to coordinate effects, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Employment. And of note, other than SACEUR, whom we just recognized and is sitting in the front row there grading our homework right now, Gen. Wolters and I were the only U.S. generals stationed on the SHAPE staff at the time of this crisis. Now for context, when those in the front row there were all lieutenants 30 years ago, we had seven American GOs on the SHAPE staff and another 17 scheduled throughout the NATO alliance. But since then we’ve divested all of those GO billets, probably to the CENTCOM branch.

So if we’re going to get serious about countering Russia—and I believe when you hear the leaders in the room, on the stage present their views, you’ll agree with me that that’s a good idea—a great place to start will be by deliberately placing strategic Airmen in the SHAPE headquarters. Of note, Gen. Wolters and I were replaced by really fantastic Army generals who will do great things for the alliance. But there are currently no Air Force generals in the military headquarters or the greatest alliance the world’s ever known, NATO. NATO is also the most powerful alliance the world has ever known and it’s the sole protector of the Westphalian order, which rose postWorld War II, and whose hallmarks are democracy, liberty, respect for human rights, and women’s rights, state sovereignty and the rules-based international world order. Over one billion people, freedom-loving people, reside, and one third of the world’s military and industrial might, live in peace and prosperity under the NATO umbrella.

But that peace is now threatened by aggression not seen in over 75 years, Russian aggression. Joining me this morning are three of the Air Force’s most renowned warriors, all of whom have faced and fought Russian aggression and are here to share their wisdom with us. Together they represent the full spectrum of US and alliance capability with in depth knowledge of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. Please welcome my guests, the commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, USAFE, and the commander of NATO Air Command, Gen. James Hecker. The commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Jim Slife. The commander 9th Air Force and the CENTCOM CFACC, Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich.

Gen. Hecker, please set the stage for us as we start at the strategic level and then work downwards. Now, you’re the most senior U.S. Airman in NATO, so let’s talk about NATO unity. Putin had three main goals. One, divide the alliance, two, isolate Ukraine from assistance primarily through economic blackmail and intimidation of neighbors, and three, execute a rapid war. To counter that, Gen. Wolters, as SACEUR, set three strategic objectives of his own. One, maintain alliance unity, two, support Ukraine, and three, don’t get NATO into a shooting war with Russia. So why was NATO able to obtain its objectives of maintaining unity while Russia was not able to divide the alliance, sir?

Gen James B. Hecker

Well, thanks, Gen. Stewart, and thanks to AFA for providing the three of us the opportunity to be able to speak to you today on this subject. That’s a great question. A lot of people didn’t know how this war was going to go when it started out. A lot of people thought it was going to finish early. But we had some good successes and he was not able to divide NATO. And the big question is, why was he not able to divide NATO and get other countries to question, “Should we be involved in this war at all?” And here’s what we did. We got into the information space and we went aggressive. We did things that we have not done before. We took classified information that we had and instead of keeping it to ourselves, we actually put it out there. We knew that Russia was planning to go to war and it just wasn’t a buildup, it just wasn’t an exercise. We knew that they were going to invade Ukraine.

We also knew that they were going to try to set it up and make it look like Ukraine attacked them and hence they attacked Ukraine so it wasn’t their fault. Normally, we would’ve kept that to ourselves. But instead of doing that, we went public before Russia actually invaded Ukraine and said, “Hey, here’s what they plan on doing. They’re going to say that Ukraine attacked them. They’re going to put some dead bodies around. They’re going to film it and they’re going to say they just did this in self-defense.” So when the Russians did that a couple days later, we all knew that it was just a made-up story because we came and we were offensive and we were proactive in telling that that’s what they were going to do. So when they did it, NATO knew it was going to happen. And quite honestly, the rest of the world knew it was going to happen and they didn’t believe it, for most of countries.

And matter of fact, it really worked to Putin’s disadvantage because it really brought NATO together. It also got other nations who were on the fence that they wanted to join NATO. Now, we’ve got… You saw the video earlier here with our good friends from Sweden and Finland and they’re going to be joining NATO and that’s going to be very powerful. When you look at Finland bringing 64 F-35s, you look at Sweden who’s going to get 60 Gripen EFs and then you look at the geography of where they’re at, that is a huge plus for NATO as far as geography as well as what they bring in the air as far as firepower goes.

Now, he also wanted to make sure that we couldn’t support Ukraine as far as giving them different things. And we’ve seen that that has not worked for them at all. We’ve been able to give them a lot of weapon systems, whether that was surface-to-air missiles, whether that’s GMLRS, whether that’s, you name the different things, 155 that we’ve given them, that have really enabled them to not only have a five-day war or 10-day war that a lot of us thought that it would be and the Russians would be able to move forward, but allowed them, here we are 200 days later, to go from giving up some of their country to a stalemate, now to a counter-offensive, which are going back now.

Who knows how this thing is going to end? But with the support of our NATO nations and everything that we’ve given them, they’ve been able to halt it and now actually go on a counter offensive. So I think what we did, and my predecessors with Gen. Harrigian and Gen. Wolters, what they did as far as making sure that we are united at NATO, united as a country and the world, I think was a huge success that we haven’t been good at in the past. So that was very good.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

And how often do we always fault either our strategic communications or our intel for not giving us accurate information? But in this case it was probably the greatest thing they did, right? We had all the intel, as you said. We shared it and we were open kimono with all of our allies. In fact, some of the intel was very exquisite in that regard. So kudos to those two communities, Intel and PA, for getting that right. Gen. Slife, Gen. Hecker talked about the importance of maintaining alliance unity. But there was also the importance of maintaining unity inside our own U.S. and also across the domains as well in the interagency level. As the Air Force’s premier expert on special operations, can you point to the unique role SOF played, or Special Forces played, in this regard? And for that matter, comment on the role played as a global integrator, which has not always been SOF’s role, especially over the last 20 years?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, thanks. So as the Special Operations Forces reflect on what we have learned in the last 20 years of counter-VEO operations, counterinsurgencies and so forth, I think there are a number of lessons that we can learn, best practices, things that we did particularly well, that have applicability to different contexts. There are probably also some things that we need to not count on in the future. One of the things that I think SOF has done particularly well over the last 20 years is recognizing that to get anything done, you really need the support, not only within the DOD with our other services and other components, but also across our government, across the intelligence community and with our allies and partners. And so SOF has built a pretty impressive network of relationships with partners, with embassy, with country teams, with other departments in the executive branch across the intelligence community.

That network of relationships has applicability far beyond the counter-VEO fight. So that’s something that I think SOF has been able to leverage pretty well over the last eight years of engaging with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, training them, empowering their noncommissioned officer corps. I think SOF has done this particularly well. One of the lessons that we probably ought not learn from the last 20 years is I think historically the role of Special Operations has been to provide key enabling capabilities that allowed the broader joint force to be successful. And over the last 20 years, in many ways SOF has become the supported element in the counter-VEO campaigns around the globe and I don’t think that will persist in the future. I think SOF has to think of itself in terms of the broader joint force and what can we do to provide those capabilities that might not be resident elsewhere?

And so for example, in our European forces in the Special Operations Command, part of what I’ve told them that they need to do is they need to get closely linked up with Gen. Hecker as the air component commander and think about creative ways that SOF can enable the air component to be successful going forward. So I think there is a lot to be learned, but foremost among those is the importance of those relationships and partnerships not only within the U.S. military but across the government and with our partners.

Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, at the Countering Russian Aggression panel at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland, September 19, 2022. Photo: Air & Space Forces Magazine

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yes, sir. Great insight on that role. Lt. Gen. Grynkewich, as an expert in CENTCOM AOR, how do you think Russia’s experiences in Ukraine will impact their posture across the world, specifically in relation to China, North Korea, and in your own backyard, in the Middle East, writ large with Iran? Do you think they’ll be more aggressive now? Do you think they’ll be more passive, talking about Russia? And in that vein, what can we glean about the global nature of regional conflicts? Are they really regional anymore or do they have impacts across?

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

Yeah, thanks, Weeble. A great question and actually you ended where I wanted to start. Many of you may be wondering why the AFCENT Commander is sitting here on a panel on Russia. And it’s because strategic competition is not constrained by somewhat arbitrary boundaries that we place on a map at the combatant command lines. And so Gen. Hecker and I talk often, a couple of times a week, about Russian activity in Syria and what’s happening in Ukraine is affecting things in AFCENT and how things in AFCENT might be impacting what’s going on in Ukraine. The Russian presence in Syria has become, I would argue, more aggressive since the Ukrainian invasion. And I think that’s driven by a couple of things. It’s driven by some of the personalities of the Russian leadership that is in Syria right now. Some of those Russian general officers, frankly, failed in Ukraine for all the reasons the Gen. Hecker outlined up front. And now they’re in Syria and my assessment is they’re trying to make a name for themselves again and regain a favorable standing within the Russian Federation armed forces.

I don’t think they’ll succeed, but that’s what they’re trying to do. So we’ve seen increased pressure both in the air and on the ground from the Russians. And frankly, it’s a bit concerning where we have forces on the ground and armed Russian aircraft that fly over them. Your Airmen and Guardians are in close contact with those Russians every single day, intercepting them, escorting them, and making sure our forces on the ground remain safe in Syria and Iraq as they continue to fight against ISIS. I also just want to quickly comment on something Gen. Slife said that I think is really important. He was talking about the relationships that the SOF community brings to the broader enterprise.

And right now, we have a deputy combined forces air component commander, a deputy CFAC, for the first time in U.S. Central Command’s history that is a special operator. It’s Maj. Gen. Dave Harris. And sir, I would just say having a SOF operator with that perspective, who has those relationships and that network has been incredibly valuable to us in AFCENT. And I think it could be something that’s valuable to the rest of the Air Force as we capture that unique expertise of our SOF operators who’ve operated in that joint and inter agency environment really since they were company grade officers. So I just wanted to highlight that, sir. Thanks.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, and that’s a great answer on the regional conflict piece. We’ve argued about this a lot, especially in some of our larger wargames, as to what extent a fight with Russia in EUCOM, really a fight with Russia, and when do you get the other dot coms involved as well? The geographic and the regional and all of the above, because it’s just so important that we get that right and who’s threatened and who’s not. Gentlemen, if you would let me, can we pivot out of the strategic level and back down to the operational level of warfare? And Gen. Hecker, sir, I’d like to start with you. Russia appears never really to have seriously attempted to achieve air superiority or suppression of enemy air defenses, or SEAD as we know it. And this goes against all U.S. doctrine. Any idea why this was the case? And would you assess it as a mistake or just perhaps a deliberate way to employ our airpower different than our conception of airpower? And also what do you think China would make of that decision?

Gen James B. Hecker

Yeah, air superiority is, as Weeble mentioned, is something that we really value in the United States across NATO and really the western world. And we know how important it was, it is, to get. And we’ve had it for a long time. Really, if you look at the last time that one of our Soldiers was killed by an enemy aircraft, that was April 15th, 1953 in the Korean War. So we’ve had air superiority for quite a while. Over the last 20, some can argue 30, years it’s mainly been uncontested and we’ve pretty much just had it. So we’ve got to make sure that we have air superiority and here’s why. Think if the Ukrainians were able to get air superiority at the beginning of the war. Everyone remembers the 25-mile-long armor tanks, et cetera, north of Kyiv. If they had air superiority, all of that would have been destroyed.

You talk about what we did in the Kuwait War 30 years ago, same thing would have happened with them. If Russia would have had air superiority, we wouldn’t have been able to resupply Ukraine. All the stuff that we were giving them as far as HARMs, as far as HIMARS and those kind of things, they would have been interdicted as soon as they got into country and would’ve never reached the Ukrainian soldiers. So you can kind of see how important air superiority is. And if you don’t have it, then the aircraft back off from one another and you end up basically with what you’re seeing today, mainly a land war with 155 artillery and HIMARs going back and forth, schools getting destroyed, malls getting destroyed and casualty rates that just blow away what we had in 20 years in Afghanistan, were blown away within the first month of the war.

That’s what you get if you don’t have air superiority. And we as western countries won’t stand for that. We won’t stand for those casualty rates. So we need to make sure, as we move forward, that we’re able to gain and maintain air superiority. And that’s why things like the operational imperative that Secretary Kendall has of the NGAD, that we need to make sure that that gets through so we don’t end up in a war like this, which is almost back in the World War I days, trench warfare where we have severe casualties, as we move on. Now, why were neither one of them able to get air superiority? It’s primarily because of the integrated air and defense systems that both Ukraine and Russia have. Ukraine got it from Russia a long time ago. Russia knew exactly what they were up against and yet when they tried to take their fighters and their aircraft inside those missile engagement zones, they were shot down. Roughly about 55 Russian fighters have been shot down by the integrated air and missile defense of the Ukraine.

Likewise, Ukraine, when they went across to try to go into Russian occupied territory in Ukraine, they were shot down as well. So what happened is they kind of now stay away from one another and it ends up being a ground war like I talked about. But I think it really shows the importance. Now, these IADs are very hard to get through. We would have a very difficult time, we in NATO, to take down these IADs. But it’s something that we have to master, something that we have to be able to do so that we can make sure that we don’t have our Soldiers and our Marines die from enemy aircraft. And we’ve been able to do that for a long time and we need to make sure that we continue that.

So a lot of times you’ll hear in the press on some of the lessons learned about this war is, “Oh, we need to bolster our Army. We need more weapons. We need more artillery,” and those kind of things. And to the extent a lot of that’s true. But you can’t forget the fact that if you had air superiority, a lot of this war that you’re seeing right now wouldn’t be happening.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, it’s been fascinating to watch, right? It’s been almost 50 years since two modern air forces collided with modern IADs as well. And what does that mean to our doctrine? And as Gen. Slife wisely said, it’s not just the lessons learned, but the lessons not learned or the lessons you would unlearn if you could. And I know Gen. Tullos is in the room, so there’s probably some good SAS papers to be written here over the next year as this progresses. Because we would be foolish not to learn these lessons and to blindly follow our own doctrine across the cliff. So I really do appreciate those insights. And Gen. Slife, I’m going to pull on that thread you talked about with leveraging partners such as Ukraine. Because we always thought when we countered Russia, it would be a superpower countering Russia. And of course Ukraine is not a NATO partner. Or not in NATO, they’re a NATO partner nation of course. So now using building partnership capacity to counter Russia using a partner at the operational level of war poses some challenges.

For instance, Ukraine has no bombers or really even long-range strike capability. So your SOF warriors had to find an innovative way to advise and assist and actually train during combat to help them with their long-range fires. At the unclassified level, can you share with the audience how your team accomplished some of this in the efforts currently going under way, sir?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, I thought in the Chief’s opening comments this morning, it was really interesting when he was talking about innovation. And it strikes me that as Airmen sometimes we run the risk of being affixed by our prefixes. We get affixed by our prefixes. So what do we do with C airplanes? Well, we carry cargo. What do we do with B airplanes? We drop bombs. We define airplanes by their prefixes. And the reality is they’re all just airplanes and they all have different attributes. Some fly fast, some fly slow, some fly high, some fly low, some are visible, some are invisible, some have crews, some don’t. They all have different attributes. And so the question that we have kind of been thinking our way through at AFSOC is how do we use what we have in different ways that is perhaps a little unconstrained by the way we historically think about the use of air power?

And so last December we demonstrated a capability with our partners at the Air Force Research Lab to use a C-130 as a long range precision fires platform. We launched a JASSM long range cruise missile out of the back of a C-130. It flew 600 miles or so over the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed a target out there. A C-130 can carry 12 of these, and that’s the same payload that a B-52 carries. But when you can do that off a 3,000-foot straight stretch of road or a dirt strip, it complicates the adversary’s targeting problems which I think contributes to deterrence. If you feel this capability at scale, a C-17 could carry 36 JASSM class munitions. And so that’s a real, I think, gamechanger when it talks about volume of fire and how do we service the targets that Gen. Hecker might need to service in a kinetic fight.

But more importantly than that, it opens up opportunities for our partners. Many of our partners don’t have the types of airplanes that we historically think about as long range precision fires platforms, but many of them have cargo airplanes. And this capability that we demonstrated requires no aircraft modification, requires no air crew training beyond that which they already do as a matter of course. And so when you can export this capability to our partners, it makes them a much more lethal force that can integrate with us. We’ve done an exercise in Europe in the spring. We’ll be doing another one in the fall alongside our partners at USAFE and some of our NATO allies. And I think this is just an example of the type of innovation that, left to their own devices, Airmen can figure these things out and bring a lot of power to bear.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

That’s fascinating too. Of course we’re not the only nation that’s doing this, all 30 NATO nations, but there’s also beyond, there’s other nations outside the alliance. So were you able to leverage your relationships inside the Special Forces community to kind of herd these cats? Is there deconfliction going on with that, sir?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Absolutely. The Operational Special Operations component inside of EUCOM is Special Operations Command Europe. And as soon as we demonstrated this capability, it was Special Operations Command Europe that really wanted to employ this capability alongside our partners at the first opportunity.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, great. Thank you, sir. And Gen. Grynkewich, staying at the operational level just a little longer, it’s become clear that Russia simply is not capable of executing command and control and employing joint fires, at least the way we conceive of it, and the joint scale operations across domains. As a MAJCOM CFAC and the Air Force expert on command and control, were you surprised by this lack of C2 ability and capability and do you think there are leadership lessons there? And also what’s the implication for JADC2 as a concept?

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

Yeah, really good question, Weeble. So I think I was a little surprised at the Russian inability to execute what we would really view as a joint campaign. And if you look at the Russian scheme of maneuver, I would argue it’s probably somewhat informed by their experience in Syria where they did not fight as a joint force and they took the wrong lessons from the last war. And that’s the danger all of us face every time. But there was no overall commander in Russia. There was no integration between an air campaign, if you would, in the way that Airmen think of it, and ground maneuver. And there was no exercise of mission command, which as the Chief mentioned this morning, is one of the key tenets that enables our Airmen to innovate and act at speed and scale very rapidly. So I think some of it is a fact that they took away the wrong lessons. I think some of it is driven by the Russian system of autocracy and we see that manifest fairly regularly.

I also just want to go back very quickly to something Gen. Hecker was talking about, and that’s the importance of air superiority. And what I would do is contrast the situation in Ukraine that he described with the last time that we had lethal contact between U.S. forces and Russians, which was in Syria a couple of years ago. In that engagement, we were enabled by SOF forces, both in the air and on the ground. We had air superiority and the Russian offensive, led primarily by a private military contractor, was wholly unsuccessful and several hundred Russians died in the assault and were obliterated. It was the United States’ ability to integrate joint fires across artillery from Army units on the ground and from aircraft in the air, whether conventional United States Air Force or Special Operations aircraft, that were firing on those Russian positions, that ended that engagement almost before it started. That’s the value of air superiority, in my mind. And it would be a very different conflict, I would predict, as Gen. Hecker said, if the Russians had taken the lessons of that engagement in particular and brought them forward.

countering russian aggression — Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of the Ninth Air Force, at the Countering Russian Aggression panel at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland, September 19, 2022. Photo: Air & Space Forces Magazine

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, and I think the other piece of command and control that we want to address is the command and control of our NCO corps, right? And we forget sometimes that that is the thing that separates us from the authoritarian regimes that are out there is we invest in a very strong NCO corps and junior leadership. And we push leadership down and we push decision-making down. So when it came to command and control, when we were able to take out the Russian nodes, they were inactive. They were not able to function. But one of the things that the Ukrainians, who have done a lot of training with us, were able to do is they are empowered and they have that. And so I don’t think we should ever lose sight of the fact that the democracies of the world, not just in NATO but across, and the empowering of people and building an NCO corps and building a corps of junior leaders who can take mission type orders and carry on, even in a command and control denied environment, is something we should not lose sight of because authoritarian governments just can’t do that.

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

And Weeble, if I extend the analogy or the comparison back to that engagement that I’m referring to, that was not something that was centrally managed by a brain in the air operation center. That was Airmen on the ground and in the air making tactical decisions and meeting the CFAC’s intent, which was to stop the Russian assault on our forces in southern Syria. That’s the only order that had to be given and they carried it out magnificently.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, it was a tech sergeant on the ground that was coordinating those fires. There is no other military on the planet that empowers mid-grade NCOs with that kind of authority.

Gen James B. Hecker

Yeah, we often, when we talk about the United States enlisted corps, NCO corps, they’re our asymmetric advantage. And they are, they’re the best that the world has to offer. But let me tell you, the Ukrainians are pretty darn good too. I had an opportunity to go watch them train and learn how to operate HIMARS. And these were enlisted folks, been in three to seven years. They’ve been working artillery in the Ukraine and now they come up to a totally new system, mechanized mobile computers. And in about three weeks we teach them how to use it. And they’re motivated. And when you talk to them, they are innovative, big time. And when I was at a chance to talk to them, I go, “Hey, how’s it going to go? Are you nervous about going back?” And they’re, “No, we’re not nervous at all. We know exactly what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for our nation.” He goes, “Russia, they have no idea what they’re fighting for.” And that’s the difference between our NCOs, Ukraine’s NCOs, western NCOs and a country like Russia.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Eight years ago, after the Ukrainians lost the Crimea and lost some territory in the Donbas, one of the most consequential decisions that the Ukrainian military made was they wanted to professionalize their NCO corps. And they implemented things that for us are just a matter of course. Things like professional military education along the way for your NCOs, empowerment, authority and responsibility pushed down to lower levels. Those were the things that for the last eight years we have quietly been working with the Ukrainian military on and I think it has made all the difference. I completely agree with you, Gen. Hecker.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

No, yeah, you’re exactly right about that, sir. That’s one of the reasons why the jamming wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. Because of course jamming works both ways. And I won’t say our forces, but the Ukrainians in particular were able to operate when both sides were blind better so we couldn’t lose sight of that. And I think that’s exactly what Chief Brown was getting at when he talks about, “We’ve done this before,” right? In innovation and empowering Airmen, we’re seeing the power of that in action right now. Gen. Slife, if I could stay with you. What lessons learned from the 20 years in the counter violent extremist organizations did we apply to this war? Positive and negatives, and were we prepared frankly for what we saw and what we’re seeing now in the role again of SOF and supporting as opposed to the supported role? I know you touched on that internally in your earlier answer, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to pull on that thread just a little bit more, sir.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, I think I’ve hit on several of the key things that we learned, was the value of integration across not just the military but the executive branch, country teams, the interagency, the intelligence community, those types of things, I think that that’s an enduring lesson learned. I think we have learned about the value of partner engagement. I talked a little bit about what we’ve been doing in Ukraine for the last eight years. I think that that makes a difference. The other thing that I think we saw the beginnings of the outline emerge over the course of the last 20 years is if you rewind the clock to 20 years ago, I don’t think many among us would have envisioned the emergence of space and cyber and information operations as warfighting domains. I don’t think we appreciated that 20 years ago. But when you look at the reality of 2022, it is absolutely clear that those are consequential domains of operation.

And so the question becomes when we talk about integrated by design, how do we integrate those things into our day-to-day operations at the outset and not as bolt-ons later on? And so when you look at some of the force design work that we’re going through inside of AFSOC to enable us to be more effective in the theaters as we support the broader joint force, we are looking at tactical units of action that integrate all those things, space, cyber information, intelligence and SOF. Those five ingredients I think make for a powerful combination that will be transformational in the future.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, it really is interesting when you put it that way because it’s all based on human spirit and training, right? The human weapon system. And we’ve talked about this a couple times, all three of you have. So you can buy all the B-21s you want, or all the joint strike fighters, but if you don’t invest in your people, provide the quality training and that growth development which the Chief talked about, they don’t fly themselves, they don’t fight themselves, it’s that integration level that really is fascinating. And it’s been a joy to watch the Ukrainians, under the leadership of your SOF warriors and other nations, kind of unite. Our nation figured out about two centuries ago that a bunch of angry farmers fighting for their nation is a pretty powerful fighting force. They just need to be led and pointed in the direction. And your team is doing that, sir. And it’s been amazing to watch.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

I think if I could just follow up, one of the things that I think will be critical to us as an Air Force going forward is that we need to have some fundamental design principles as we think about how we organize ourselves for this operating environment. It’s not even the future operating environment, it’s the current operating environment. And I would suggest that some of what we have learned over the last 20 years would point us towards three design principles that we ought to be thinking about. And so the Chief talked about force generation, Wing A staff, some of those things. I think there are three things that need to be embedded into all that. The first one is decentralization. For reasons that made all the sense in the world at the time, we have heavily centralized across the Air Force over the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War. And I think now is probably a time for some decentralization.

Number two, empowerment. We see the impact that empowered mid-grade NCOs and company grade officers can have if they’re empowered. The Chief talked about mission command. That’s a key component of mission command is empowerment and trust down the chain of command. And so I think that has to be a design principle. And number three, we have to organize ourselves around missions and not around functions. We have to organize ourselves around missions and not around functions. And our most effective organizations, the organizations that have the greatest esprit d’corps, are the ones that have a clear sense of mission and not simply a function that they perform in some larger nebulous mission that’s integrated elsewhere. So the more we can push that down inside the Air Force, I think the more effective we’ll be.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Perfect. Thank you, sir. We have a few moments left. Lt. Gen. Grynkewich, your final thoughts for the audience?

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

I guess a couple of things. I’ll go back to the strategic level for a minute and just the Secretary talked about the pacing threat being China. And I think while this is a panel on Russia, I’d like to take the opportunity to just note that, again, strategic competition doesn’t confine itself to the combatant command boundary. I would think that Gen. Hecker is just as concerned about Chinese influence and what the Chinese are doing in Europe and Africa as I am about what they’re doing in Central Command and as Gen. Slife is thinking about globally. And so this is an opportunity I think as we think about this Russian problem, which is a global problem, where we’re thinking about managing escalation in multiple theaters to take some real key lessons for our Air Force about exactly how we think about a global problem like China as a rising and revisionist power.

At the operational level, I’d highlight the importance of changing our paradigm in two ways. The first is integrated by design. The air operations center in Al Udeid, which many of you have likely served in, has been a great example of that over the years where we have so many allied and partner nations who are integrated there upfront. So we’ve done well in that regard. You flip it over though and you talk about mission command, and I know that there’s many who have flown in particular in the AOR who are likely frustrated by the CFAC being the 1,000-mile screwdriver or 2,000-mile screwdriver that’s micromanaging your tactical decisions.

Those are things that we’re working on in AFCENT and experimenting with as we execute Agile Combat Employment, as we have our air expeditionary wing commanders run cluster bases to try to provide the Air Force with the experience that we can from being in a theater that’s in contact with an enemy every single day, generating combat power every single day, using an A staff using Agile Combat Employment and thinking about how we apply mission command. So again, it’s a global problem and we need to think about it globally, both at the operational and the strategic level.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Thank you, sir. Gen. Slife, your closing comments?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

I would just say that one of the things that we’re talking about quite a bit in inside of AFSOC these days is that the first part of AFSOC is AF. We are the Air Force’s Special Operations Command. We’ve spent the last 20 years serving as the Air Force component to SOCOM, necessarily so. But I think really our value proposition for the next 20 years is to be the SOF component of the United States Air Force. And so this really underpins a lot of our thinking. And I’m just pleased to have the opportunity to be up on stage with other Airmen talking about these things. Thanks.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yes, sir. Thank you. Gen. Hecker, sir, you get the final word.

Gen James B. Hecker

Well, thanks. Our last two National Defense Strategies through the last two administrations has really emphasized allies and partners. And it couldn’t be more important now. As we take our fighter force when I came in and it’s less than half of what it was when I came in. Bomber force is less than a third, two-thirds less, than when I came in. We really need our allies and partners to do things like gain and maintain air superiority. And if we take the lead like we did here with the Ukraine, if we will give up some secrets, they will follow. And what we’ve seen is we’ve had three additional countries order F-35s since the invasion February 24th of ’22. Right now, we have 120 F-35s in NATO. By 2034, we’re supposed to have around 600. And we need every one of them and we need to be interoperable and we need to work with them to make sure that we can take out the IADs and gain air superiority on day one should Russia decide to expand this war.

And it’s more important now than it ever has been. So that’s what we want all, when we go through and we talk to industry and we do these things, that’s something that we need you guys to help us out with. Help us out with our allies and partners in giving them the things they do, integration in advance, like we talked about before, so they’re buying the right things. Thank you very much.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Great words, sir. Thank you. And team, thank you for your leadership, your sacrifice, and this inspiring conversation and for joining us here today at AFA’s first Air, Space & Cyber Warfare Symposium. And for our audience, thank you for joining us for this panel on countering Russian aggression. We hope you have an amazing rest of your day and a fantastic and incredible AFA. Thank you.

Air Force Plans New Blended Wing Body Cargo/Tanker Aircraft by 2027

Oct. 5, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force plans to complete testing of a full-scale blended wing body advanced cargo/tanker aircraft within four years, according to the department’s new Climate Action Plan. The demonstrator could be a prototype for a future operational mobility aircraft or family of aircraft, and the plan suggests the Air Force may skip the so-called “bridge tanker” acquisition.

The Air Force Climate Action Plan, released Oct. 5, notes a number of fuel-saving efficiency modifications for existing aircraft, such as winglets, vortex generators, compressor blade coatings, and more efficient engines. But one of its “Key Results” planned under fleet modernization is the development and testing “of a full-scale blended wing body prototype, completed by FY27.”

A blended wing body aircraft, as the name implies, is a large flying wing, dispensing with a cylinder-type fuselage and blending the wings directly into the fuselage. The concept, which is more aerodynamically efficient than a cylinder-type aircraft and boasts a far greater internal volume for fuel and payload, has been explored for decades. Boeing flew a subscale demonstrator called the X-48, in various configurations, from 2007 to 2013.

In the new, full-scale project, the Air Force is collaborating with the Defense Innovation Unit, NASA, and “industry partners” to “accelerate prototyping of ultra-efficient aircraft designs for future tanker and mobility aircraft,” the climate report said.

Such an aircraft “could drive transformative changes, as this aircraft design increases aerodynamic efficiency by at least 30 percent over current Air Force tanker and mobility aircraft and enables dramatically greater fuel offload at range to ensure strike capabilities in a contested environment,” according to the report.

Flying wing aircraft also tend to have an inherently lower radar cross-section than traditional configurations because of their shape and the lack of highly radar-reflective vertical stabilizers.

The Air Force was not immediately able to say what role the Air Force Research Laboratory would have in the project or whether the aircraft would have an “X-plane” designation like the X-48.

Energy-saving aircraft can increase payload range, decrease the need for additional tanker aircraft or forward-located refueling facilities, and “decrease risk to logistics supply chains,” all of which can “significantly improve combat capability,” the Air Force said.

In July, the Defense Innovation Unit put out a request for information for blended wing body aircraft concepts applicable to future tanker and cargo aircraft and potentially commercial aircraft as well. The RFI asked industry to pitch designs by Aug. 2 that could “provide at least 30 percent more aerodynamic efficiency than Boeing 767 and Airbus A330 families of commercial and military aircraft.”

The 767 is the basis of the KC-46 Pegasus tanker, and the A330 is the basis of the KC-30 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT), a variant of which Lockheed Martin has proposed—as the “LMXT”—to meet the Air Force’s so-called “bridge tanker” requirement. The aircraft would bridge the Air Force to a notional “KC-Z” stealthy tanker capable of operating and surviving in contested airspace, although in recent months the Air Force has discussed that aircraft as being much smaller than a traditional tanker.

The RFI touted blended wing aircraft as offering “operational advantages such as increased range, loiter time, and offload capabilities.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, beginning with the fiscal 2023 budget rollout, has warned the aviation industry that he believes that a modified version of the KC-46 will be the most likely solution to a “bridge tanker” requirement, but that more analysis has yet to be done.

Lockheed Martin has shown numerous variations on a blended wing body cargo/tanker aircraft at AFA’s annual Air, Space & Cyber conferences for many years.

The RFI said a blended wing body, coupled with the anticipated engine technology of 2030, could result in a “60 percent mission fuel burn reduction” versus current aircraft.

Companies responding to the DIU’s July solicitation were to submit a full plan to “design, develop, test, verify, validate and certify the system” for a potential “follow-on prototype build, live-fly, and production.” Potential contractors had to use digital methods for design and to create the aircraft using an open mission systems architecture for swift modifications and competitive equipment.

However, the RFI did not say what the timeframe would be for the possible blended wing body aircraft to fly. The climate report seems to have answered that question.

USAF, South Korea Drop JDAMs in Allied Response to North Korean Missile Tests

Oct. 5, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military and allied forces engaged in a robust response to a North Korean missile test Oct. 4.

The Department of Defense released video Oct. 5 showing four South Korean Air Force F-15K Slam Eagles and four U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons joining together in a show of force in response to North Korea’s recent missile tests. The two air forces formed a combined attack squadron to strike the uninhabited South Korean island of Jikdo in the Yellow Sea, according to U.S. Forces Korea.

A F-15 dropped two Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guided bombs, successfully hitting the target. The exercise was in response to the latest moves by North Korea, showing that the two air forces can conduct precision strikes to take out threats.

“South Korea and the United States demonstrated their will to respond sternly to any Northern threats as well as their capabilities to conduct a precision strike at the origin of provocations based on the alliance’s overwhelming forces,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a press release, according to Yonhap news agency.

So far, North Korea has been silent on its recent launches.

“It goes without saying that any constructive positive communication is welcome,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Oct. 4. “Firing missiles is not a good way to do that.”

“In the meantime, we will continue to be prepared to defend our allies,” he added.

Tail markings on the U.S. F-16s involved in the JDAM mission indicated the aircraft belonged to the 8th Fighter Wing headquartered at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea. U.S. Forces Korea did not immediately respond to requests for further details on the strike.

The U.S. Air Force bilateral strike in South Korea was just one of many responses by American forces, including other live-fire drills.

U.S. forces in Korea launched surface-to-surface missiles of their own, sending four Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) toward the sea. South Korea fired two ballistic missiles, one of which malfunctioned and crashed at an air base, according to reports. Those launches were not intended to strike North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In addition to the live-fire exercises with South Korea, properly the Republic of Korea, U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs joined the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force over the Sea of Japan in response to the test.

U.S. Navy assets may also be heading toward the Korean Peninsula. According to South Korea, the U.S. Navy is sending the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group (CSG) back to its coast. The group took part in exercises there in September before joining South Korean and Japanese forces in anti-submarine drills. The U.S. Seventh Fleet told Air & Space Forces Magazine the “Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is currently operating in the Sea of Japan” but did not comment on future plans.

The recent tests by North Korea, which possesses nuclear weapons, are the most provocative move by the authoritarian regime since 2017. The Oct. 4 test provoked considerable alarm as the missile flew over northern Japan before landing in the ocean outside of Japanese waters. Air raid sirens rang out in Tokyo, and authorities in Hawaii had to assure citizens that the missile did not pose a threat to the U.S. island.

The North Korean tests appeared to be in response to the arrival of the Reagan in the area and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea.

According to some analysts, open source information suggests the missile tested Oct. 4 by North Korea has enough range to hit the U.S. territory of Guam in the western Pacific, home to major American Air Force and Navy bases. North Korea has rapidly increased its missile tests following a several-year lull. It has fired about 40 missiles in 2022.

“I’m pretty confident in my capability today against the North Koreans,” Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III called his South Korean counterpart Oct. 4 to address North Korea’s latest launch.

“They agreed that it was a serious escalation and a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions,” according to the Defense Department readout of the call.

President Joe Biden also called Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with North Korea, but a U.S. special representative for the country held a trilateral call with envoys from Japan and South Korea, according to the State Department. An urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council was held Oct. 5. The U.S. promised that North Korea’s missile tests would continue to be answered with appropriate U.S. demonstrations of force.

“We are taking appropriate defense and deterrent steps with allies and partners,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Oct. 5. “I think what we’re seeing is that if they continue down this road, it will only increase the condemnation, increase the isolation, increase the steps that are taken in response to their actions.”

Shortly after Blinken’s comments, the South Korean military said that North Korea had launched two more ballistic missiles, this time towards its eastern waters. It was the sixth round of missile launches in 12 days.

Watch, Read: Preparing for Global Competition

Oct. 5, 2022

Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones, Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, head of U.S. Transportation Command, and Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, head of Pacific Air Forces, joined together for a panel on “Preparing for Global Competition” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 19, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Boy, do we have a terrific panel to talk to us about the way ahead today, beginning with the Honorable Gina Ortiz Jones, undersecretary of the Air Force.

Gen. Jacqueline “Jackie” Van Ovost, Commander, U.S. Transportation Command.

And Gen. Kenneth S. “Cruiser” Wilsbach, Commander, Pacific Air Forces.

And if I sound like a cheerleader for this group, you’re right, I am. So please, if you all take your seats. Well, we’re going to start with undersecretary Jones’ opening remarks, then Gen. Van Ovost, if you’re ready. And Gen. Wilsbach, to you. And then we’ll continue around with this group. And I think as you watch them lead as a team, you’ll be impressed. They’re exemplary. So please, Under Secretary, Secretary Jones.

Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones

Great. Well, Orville, thank you so much. It’s been a wonderful conference thus far. And when I thought about the title of this panel and then I looked at your genius and who you put on the panel, I thought it was actually reflective of exactly what we need to do and I think what’s going to be a great discussion when we look at the different time phases that are actually represented by each of our participations today on this panel. So when we think about global competition, I mean, let’s be clear. Global competition, yes, but we are talking about China, China, China, China. If that was lost on you from Secretary Kendall’s remarks today, it’s all about China and making sure that we’re ready for the high-end fight there.

But I think it’s also reflective here of the challenge that we have as we balance risk across time. So we’ve got certainly what Cruiser is doing at PACAF, what Gen. Van Ovost is doing as we support our combatant commanders, and then certainly, what myself and the vices do every single week when we go and advocate for the resources that our Airmen and our Guardians need. Right now, we’re talking about 24-28. But ultimately, what we’re talking about is how do we buy down risk? How do we ensure that we are balancing risk, again, in the near term across all of the competing demands? But let’s be clear about keeping the main thing, the main thing. The main thing is ensuring that we are addressing the pacing challenge—China’s actions that threaten our security, challenge our security, our interests, and our values frankly, and that rhetoric, those actions are only increasing.

So the ways in which we can buy down that risk is really what the operational imperatives have been about. Many of you heard the Secretary talk about those earlier today. But when we think about global competition, you’ve got to act and invest like you’re in a competition. And that’s exactly what those operational imperatives over the last year that we’ve been working hard on all across the department. And now, as we are looking to shape ’24 and ’28 and that budget to make sure that our investments reflect, again, the capabilities that really we need in that timeframe as we not only ensure that we’re ready, but we are best able to support the joint force, that’s really how we think about global competition, certainly in campaigning. But again, making sure that we’re making the smart investments. So I look forward to the good discussion, but I think that frames exactly where we’re at right now.

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost

Thanks, Madam Secretary. As we discussed this morning and then Chief talked about, as well as the Secretary, the strategic environment has really changed. And if you think about Ukraine’s heroic defense of their nation, how it demonstrated the importance of unified support, positional advantage, secure lines of communication, and the value of air and space power. And as the Secretary said, this is all about balancing risk. So as we reflect on those operational successes, just recognize, and I think we all do, that that’s not what the future portends for us. So how are we going to get after it? I think about the growing challenge of complexity that the Chief talked about and our ability to continue to deliver. When we think about a wartime scenario, there’ll be significant logistical demands. So how will we adapt into that future? And that will start here in the homeland.

And then, of course, in the Pacific, with China as the forefront, the significant distances we have to cover to maneuver the force and supply the force really make this quite the challenge. And it’s driving an increased reliance on the air component, Air Mobility Command with their rapid global mobility. And an increased reliance on airpower and space power that we talked about this morning. So I think about how we minimize risk, our ability to continue to deploy, maneuver, and sustain the joint force. It’s going to require us through what we call our warfighting framework at TRANSCOM, our global mobility posture, our global mobility capacity, and our ability to command and control, and integrate within the Joint scheme of maneuver will all be pretty critical to the fight.

We talk about our amazing allies and partners, who provide us that access basing and overflight and an ability to use their resources and networks to ensure that we can maneuver and maintain that freedom to maneuver. But I also want to remind everyone, it starts right here in the homeland, with our own homeland defense. Eighty-five percent of the force elements expected to go to the fight will emanate here out of the CONUS. And I think about the non-kinetic and kinetic activities that could occur. We’re working very closely with NORTHCOM and CYBERCOM on ensuring that we can protect the homeland, our ports here, our railways, and our roads to ensure that we’ll be there to be able to mobilize and maneuver the force at a time and place of our choosing. And then on the capacity. So as I said, we’re more reliant on rapid global mobility than ever.

And I think about our strategic airlift capacity. We have to make sure that it is ready and it is credible. And I think about air refueling. It is our most stressed fleet. It is required in every national defense strategy mission set. So we have to think about how do we preserve that capability? And when we talk about credible capacity, credible capacity is what we’re trying to do across the force with respect to JADC2. It’s an ability to be connected, to understand the environment through a battlespace awareness, having secure crypto so that we can communicate and we can leverage that data to ensure that we can get decision advantage at all echelons so that we can execute command intent at all echelons, because we know that we’ll be challenged to maintain that connections throughout. So that credible capacity is absolutely necessary for the joint fight.

And then our ability to command and control, and integrate. Keeping those systems up. I think about logistics can no longer be an afterthought. It’s got to be integrated into all joint warfighting functions, from planning until execution. And that’s the only way we’re going to be able to maneuver at tempo to meet the Joint force requirements. And meet it, we will. And we can’t do it with all airlift. And we’ve got to be thinking about fast sealift ships. What can our allies and partners bring? What about multinational logistics? And we’re very focused right now on fuel, to ensure, number one, we got to get fuel out. How are we going to be able to do that in multiple ways? Because we cannot depend solely on airlift. It’s an amazing airplane, the C-17 and C-5, but they will not be able to manage the capacity that we have.

I think right now in Ukraine, as much as we’re doing great, great work in Ukraine, C-17s and C-5s are just killing it. They’re only moving about 20 percent of the air missions, 80 percent is being moved by our commercial partners. We got to be able to protect that capacity. And then, in the end, it’s all about our Airmen and Guardians. They get after it. They know they’re going to get after it. We’re going to make sure that they’re ready, and that the equipment is ready, and we give them every opportunity to exercise this capability, which is what we’re trying to do out in the Pacific to close those gaps. Because closing those gaps, we’ll do that. We’re committed.

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander U.S. Transportation Command, said the Air Force needs look for successors to the current fleet of airlifters, while also remaining fit to fight. **Mike Tsukamoto Air & Space Forces Magazine**

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, General. Gen. Wilsbach.

Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach

Thanks, Gen. Wright. I really appreciate the opportunity to be in this panel and it’s such an honor to be able to share the platform with two amazing professionals that are on either side of me. And I totally agree with what both of you said and certainly the Secretary said. It’s all about China. And certainly China’s the pacing threat. But I’d like to step back and just why are we competing? Well, it’s because countries like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, they don’t believe in the international rules-based order. They want to impose their will. And they’re willing to do just about anything to impose that will on the rest of the world that do value a rules-based international order. And so that’s why we have to compete. And certainly, China is the pacing threat. And so in the area of responsibility that I have, we spend just about every day competing with China.

And one of the ways that we do that is through our allies and partners. And this is an advantage that we have that our competitors don’t have. Because if you think about who’s on their team and who’s on our team, we’ve got a lot more teammates. And we should take advantage of that at every opportunity. And so we in PACAF and in the Indo-Pacific try to do as many exercises and other activities with our allies and partners to work toward interoperability and learn one another’s best practices and implement those tactics, techniques, and procedures. And that is something that China doesn’t really have anybody that they can say they do that with. Even though we’ve seen them exercising recently with Russia, it’s very transactional. And from what we can tell, there’s not a whole lot of sharing going on. It’s very stove-piped. So that’s a significant advantage and one that we should continue to propagate as we go forward.

The other aspect is having excellent activities and capabilities with our Joint partners. And if you’ve seen from my bio, I’ve been in the Pacific a lot of my career. And I can report to you at this juncture that it has never been better from the standpoint of joint integration of operations. And in fact, it’s fairly safe for me to say that as of this very moment, there is something that is integrated amongst the Joint force that is playing out in the Pacific, because it happens every day, 24/7. There’s some kind of Airman, Sailor, Soldier, Marine, and Guardian that is doing something together to compete with China and as well as North Korean and Russia.

And so the joint aspect of what we need to do is getting better and better. And being able to integrate effects faster than our adversaries can respond to them in a meaningful way is what we continue to press forward. As we go forward and we think about what is meaningful to our adversaries and those that we’re competing with in our region in the Pacific or others, we’ve got to determine what is it that gets their attention? What is it that deters them from nefarious activities? And I’ll tell you, one of the areas that we’re working on in the Pacific is Agile Combat Employment. And you heard Gen. Brown talk about this. We’ve seen from the operational imperatives that it’s included in that. And we are working on that very aggressively in the Pacific. And as a matter of fact, I reported to the press earlier that about a year ago we determined that we had reached our initial operating capability with respect to Agile Combat Employment for PACAF.

And so now, since then until now and into the future, we’ll be working on full operational capability for Agile Combat Employment, which will continue to stress our Airmen. But I’ll tell you, they’re up to the task. And I certainly count on Gen. Van Ovost and the other MAJCOMs to be able to accomplish this. And we absolutely count on the Secretary and the work that she’s doing as well as the rest of the HAF to help us modernize to achieve agile combat employment as well as the capabilities that we need to have as we go forward into the future.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, sir. Secretary Jones, back to you for just a moment. You often talk about how the Department of the Air Force is preparing for a high-end fight to meet a high-end threat. But we cannot do that without the right people. Could you please walk us through a bit more what the Department of the Air Force is doing to maximize the national talent pool for the nation’s defense, Airmen, Guardians, and Department of the Air Force civilians?

Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones

Absolutely. Secretary Kendall earlier talked about our strategic advantage, which is always our people. Making sure we’ve got the best and brightest. Understanding that when they come to the Department of the Air Force as an Airman, as a Guardian, as a civil servant, that they’re going to be able to serve to their full potential, because we’ve got some really hard problems that we need the best helping us think through. And certainly, again, the operational imperatives are just, we went through kind of the first tranche of those and those will continue. But the ways in which we think about attaining and continuing to maintain air and space superiority, we’re going to need, again, the best and brightest helping us do that.

But I think that only comes about certainly, when we talk about the opportunities in the Department of the Air Force. But I think that also comes about when we are intentional in how we demonstrate that if you do come to the Department of the Air Force, you’re going to be able to serve to your full potential. And ensuring that, again, regardless of where you came from, regardless of what you studied, regardless of your background, there’s a place for you. And certainly, as the Secretary mentioned earlier, it’s a high calling. It’s a high calling to serve your country, certainly. And less than 1 percent, as we all know, will actually wear the nation’s cloth. But to be able to be part of something bigger than yourself, along with all the other benefits certainly that come with being a member of our Department of the Air Force. But really again, it’s really about mission readiness for us. Let me give you one example of that.

We recently had a meeting at the department where we were talking about our competition for strategic talent. And the last time we had looked at our talent pool and our goals, if you will, with regard to some critical languages, was in 2004. That was a long time ago. That was a completely different threat. I mean that was Baghdad times. We’re in Beijing times. And our critical talent pool with respect to these language skills did not reflect essentially what we needed. And part of that goes back to, one, how do we understand what we will need? But also, how we’re being deliberate about bringing in that talent. When you look at, for example, how long it takes to create a Chinese linguist at a 3-3 level, which is increasingly what our warfighters say they need, it takes about six to eight years, if you take somebody right off the street to do that. That’s a long time. That’s time we don’t have.

You know who can probably get to a 3-3, if they’re not already at a 3-3, much quicker? Chinese Americans. First-generation kids, that if they come in, if they can see again the opportunities, they can see that they’re going to have a fruitful one term, several terms in the Department of the Air Force, that might be something that is attractive for them, and something that they may consider, had they not previously. That’s important though, because when we look at what we need, what I just described, that talent, that skillset versus where we already have some challenges in terms of recruiting into the Department of the Air Force, and that’s not actually just the Department of the Air Force, that’s across the entire department, we already start off with a smaller pool of Asian Americans coming into serve.

And so how do we think about, again, being intentional, our recruiters being intentional, our outreach being intentional, our messaging being intentional and certainly being intentional in how we retain the best talent? I mean, our currently serving Airmen and Guardians are always going to be our number one commercials. And so when they come in and they serve and they go home to their communities and they talk about what they’re able to do at Clear Space Force Base or what they were able to do serving at PACAF, that is always going to be better than any commercial that we can have. And so making sure that we are and if we identify as those disparities, we’re closing them again, in the interest of ensuring that we are keeping the best talent, but also ensuring the pipeline of talent into national security is what it needs to be based on some of these challenges that we have.

And that’s not just on the language skillset piece, but I mean when any of the those with a technical skillset as well. I mean, it’s really hard to compete certainly, when the economy is good. But how we think about ensuring folks understand certainly the opportunities, but the trajectory they could have in the Department of the Air Force is as critical to our operational success as any other.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thank you, ma’am. Gen. Van Ovost, could you elaborate a bit, and you’ve covered this somewhat already, but what do you believe will be a critical attribute today and going forth into the future across our Indo-Pacific INDOPACOM AOR? A critical attribute?

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost

Orville, when I think about the six future attributes to the Joint force, the one that really rings out and what we have to get after is agility. It begins with those amazing, talented Airmen and Guardians coming into our force and our training exercise to think like warriors and to get after the problem with the resources that they have. But when I think about agility for us, again, we talked a little bit about this. Our ability to C2, to look at all the data and make advanced decisions, starts with connected platforms. I mean, just simply having battlespace awareness and being able to securely C2 and navigate greatly increases our survivability and our ability to execute commander intent. So that’s got to be the baseline for all of our platforms.

All of our platforms should be sensors. And we should try to leverage that data at echelon. But again, agility requires that we are out-thinking the enemy, that we’re out there exercising these opportunities and coming back with new ideas and not being scared to try something new in a new way. And I think that we’ve provided a lot of opportunities to do that. I’m really looking forward to a series of exercises that are occurring over the next year, beginning with Guide and then moving into Mobility Guardian next year. They’re going to help us solve some of those key gaps to be a more agile force.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, ma’am. All three of you can speak very well to Agile Combat Employment, but for Gen. Wilsbach, if you might drill down a little bit, names and places. But more importantly, for the industry audience, requirements to make ACE real. Agile Combat Employment, across the huge AOR within which you’re operating, please.

Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach

You bet. So I think I’ll start with bridging from what Undersecretary Jones said and what Gen. Van Ovost said about the people aspect of this. And the first thing is Airman that are capable of doing multiple tasks, we call them multi-capable Airmen, and we’ve talked about that the last few years. But we’re really starting to see that play out now both in Europe and in the Pacific. And even in the CONUS. And we need Airmen that can do their primary assigned task, but they also have to be able to do other tasks. And generally, we’re not asking, for example, somebody who normally might work in services to now start turning wrenches on an aircraft. But you can imagine that perhaps a crew chief might be able to load weapons. And that’s normally two separate career fields. But we’re trying to group similar career fields so that we can get more accomplished with the same number of people.

Because it really addresses what Gen. Van Ovost said, which is the ability to be agile. And it’s tough to be agile when you need to bring 200 people, say, to an island to support six jets. That’s not agile and certainly not light. To the point that the undersecretary made, which is recruiting and retaining the best people, we also have to have those people. And I have to report to you, I’m very impressed with the force as they’ve taken on this role of multi-capable Airmen. They’re extremely excited. You should see some of the folks that are for the first time marshaling in an F-35 into a parking spot. And they’ve never worked on the flightline before and they’re helping the crew chief turn the airplane. They’re so excited about it. And they’re excited about the challenge of learning something new and being really at the tip of the spear. And so that personnel piece of Agile Combat Employment is so important.

The next part that we need to work on and we are working on is the command and control aspect of Agile Combat Employment. So as you might imagine, if you disperse your force across numerous airfields, say you had a hundred airfields and you’ve got six to 12 jets at all those airfields, you have to make sure that everybody at those airfields knows what the plan is for the day. And what’s expected of them, what we need them to get airborne, where to go and then what to do when you get there. Certainly, you need to keep parts, and fuel, and food, and water. And maybe even experts that will do specific maintenance actions at those places. And in order to make sure that all that happens, you have to have a command and control system that enables that.

In addition to that, you also need to have a supply system that will get the right part to the right person at the right time. And you have to have the assets to be able to do that. One of the ways that we’re reducing the risk on that is by prepositioning. And the undersecretary, among others, worked on getting us some funding last year and there’s more funding this year for prepositioning equipment all across the Pacific. And the same as true in Europe. And that will reduce some of the risk, especially in the short term on resupply. But as you go forward, you’re still going to have to be able to do logistics in a contested environment. And so those are probably the things that come to mind first. Thanks.

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach speaks at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Maryland, on Sept. 19, 2022. Staff photo by Mike Tsukamoto.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, sir. Secretary Jones, back to you, please. Can you talk to us a bit more about a relatively new phrase, integrated deterrence? You talk about it every day. And certainly for me and this audience, both with us and the live streamed audience, talk a bit more from your own experience about integrated deterrence, and especially, how allies and partners across the INDOPACOM AOR are such an important part of integrated deterrence.

Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones

Absolutely. So integrated deterrence fundamentally is about how do we marshal all of our resources as a country? But how do we also engage with our partners and allies, bring the full bear of our capabilities to ensure that we are deterring those that would threaten our security, our interests, and our values? So that’s the definition. But I think we’re seeing every single day what it actually looks like. And that’s with Ukraine. Our response before the attack, frankly, where we used exquisite intelligence to help explain, certainly to our partners and allies, to the American people and to others interested, in what exactly we were seeing. And frankly, how well we were seeing it and what we thought that could portend for the future, as well as the way in which we’ve responded since the attack, since the invasion rather, which is again, frankly, working quite hard to ensure that the Ukrainians have the resources, the information that they need.

Marshaling international support to ensure that’s sustained. Frankly, the way in which everyone has seen the continued indispensability of our NATO alliance, which will grow shortly by two, all of that, I think, speaks to what is possible with integrated deterrence. And certainly, it’s doing the things, but really it’s a mindset. How do we ensure that we are doing everything possible within our grasp to deter those that would again, threaten our security, our interests and our values? I think it’s been really though, I just want to pick up a little bit on what Cruiser just mentioned though, when we think about integrated deterrence, integrated deterrence is the way in which we can best buy ourselves back some time.

Certainly, when you think about prepositioning, what that does, not only does it frankly, support our divestment strategy, which is important, but it also makes it a much more complicated targeting problem for our adversaries, which is important when we think about, again, buying ourselves time as they frankly, potentially waste resources, waste time in trying to figure out what is that and how to potentially mitigate it. So integrated deterrence is how do we work together? But at the end of the day, it’s really about how do we reduce the risk in the near term as we are again, every single week, myself and the vices, going into these Demags and advocating for the resources that we know are needed in a high-end fight? So there are things that we can do in the near term as we get to the capabilities that we know are most necessary.

When I think of partners and allies, it’s interesting, sometimes folks will say, “Well, how are you integrating partners and allies into this?” And I take a step back from that question, to be frank, because I think there’s a little bit of a humility that’s much more needed, I think, in the Indo-Pacific AOR than we might have, for example, with our NATO allies, just because that alliance is so mature. Everyone knows what NATO Article 2 is. Everyone knows what Article 5 is. We don’t have that same construct in the Indo-Pacific. And so absent that, we have to, I think, have a little bit more humility in terms of understanding what exactly is the why for our partners and allies in the region. And having a clearer understanding of that will help us understand where truly our mutual challenges and opportunities to help us understand how far we can go and how quickly, because these folks have to live in the neighborhood.

And it’s important that I think we recognize that. But also frankly, through our investments, through our presence, through our exercise, through the ways in which we make ACE real, are demonstrating our commitment to security and peace in the region. Certainly, through our actions as well that are not just frankly, limited to the Department of Defense, but through all of the other engagements that we have across the USG. I think though, it’s really important that we recognize kind of where some of our partners and allies are now as they are leaning forward based on their own renewed understandings of the security environment. Certainly, it’s exciting what is happening in Japan as we look at their willingness to engage in a way that we haven’t seen in quite a while. Certainly, Australia as they’re going through their own defense review individually, but also, as we think about the opportunities there in concert with AUKUS.

These are all things that we need to be encouraging and frankly, thinking about in the context of maybe our more mature security alliances. So I was very encouraged when we had for the first time four Asia-Pacific partners show up to a NATO summit, the Madrid Summit. That was the first time that happened. And so since then, there have been some agreements to work in some other places. But I think that is really, again, when we think about integrated deterrence, what are our resources, what are our alliances right now and how do we expand upon those based on a mutual understanding of our challenges and opportunities, that’s where we need to go when it comes to, I think, not only integrated deterrence, but how we engage in the region.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thank you, ma’am. In shifting back to Gen. Van Ovost, you’re really a proven expert in so many ways to prevailing in the joint deployment distribution enterprise construct involving COVID-19. You’ve prevailed certainly evacuation from Afghanistan and everything that’s going on in Ukraine. So I know the audience would like to hear from you. And not to preclude Gen. Minihan’s pitch later this week, you can brag about your Kabul C-17 air crews a bit as a very experienced C-141, C-17 pilot. So please, ma’am.

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost

Thanks. Well, I say again as we look at the strategic environment and all the great things our Airman did with respect to not just the quick roll-up of Afghanistan FOBs, but the retrograde and the NEO and now what we’re doing in Ukraine, just amazing, amazing work. But we have a lot of lessons that we’re learning. We’re learning them every day. And they’re all directly applicable to what we’re doing in the Pacific. And really, this is where we need your help and your creativity. We recognized that what we had to do, we had to do quickly, at a higher tempo than we expected and at a higher velocity and higher scale numbers-wise. So we faulted a little bit in our ability to scale quickly. And that is something we are working on, an exercise in the Pacific. It’s absolutely necessary.

We had to abandon some of our processes and some of our AT systems, because they were not supportive of what we were trying to do. So we have some major changes in the line when it comes to that. And that absolutely has to do with gathering all of the data as well, and our ability to connect and make decisions real-time on what is happening. Linking into what the Secretary said, we could not have done it without our allies and partners. Nine nations with us, and temporary safe havens, and allowing us that overflight, allowing us to get this done. We’re going to need that in spades in the Pacific, because we used to only have a few nodes in the Pacific. Really, less than 10 or so that we use every day on normal stuff. Nowadays, we’re branching out with Agile Combat Employment, expeditionary air base ops, all the Joint service maneuver concepts that are using more ports, more beaches, more airports than ever.

And so our ability to scale not only in capacity, but working with our allies and partners to know what the playing field is going to look like, should we have to have a conflict in the Pacific. And so deepening those relationships with them is really, really critical, because had we not had them, the entire Afghan operation would’ve been a different story. So we’re still learning a lot. We’re applying those lessons. And we really want your cards and letters. I know Air Mobility Command is happy to have them. I’m happy to have them. But we got to work together in the joint scheme maneuver. Imagine if we could anticipate the branches of the joint scheme maneuver, understand the consumption race of fuel, munitions, and spare parts, and glass one, and everything that we need, and be able to push those logistics forward during periods of domain superiority, that’s what we need to be about. And that’s where we need your help.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, ma’am. Well, this is the fun part of my job. A bit of a speed round. Unexpected, but I know you all are prepared. We’re going to talk about leadership, Gen. Wilsbach, and then Gen. Van Ovost and, of course, Secretary Jones to wrap up. You all lead at levels beyond the earth really you’re working with, Airmen and Guardians, both every day. So if you would, a couple of leadership principles that you apply, that you use. And I’m listening to every word, because even at 50 years in our Air Force, I’m still learning. So Gen. Wilsbach, Gen. Van Ovost and Secretary Jones to wrap up. Leadership.

Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach

Thanks. So I had an opportunity to go to weapon school when I was a youngster. And I took away some lessons during that course that I’ve used as I’ve progressed in my career and had the opportunity to lead larger organizations. And so humble, credible, approachable, so the motto of the weapons officer. And so leading as a humble leader, but still with credibility and the ability to do your job very, very well and approachable. And the approachable part, I think, is, especially as you get into larger organizations, is being able to have your staff, your colleagues and also, certainly, your boss to ask you tough questions. And not being afraid to ask you tough questions. Or, even to give you a solid critique, “Hey, boss, you’re just wrong on this and here’s why.” And so that has been one aspect that I’ve tried to employ in the organizations that I’ve had the opportunity to lead.

The other aspect of leadership that I took away from weapons school is, plan, brief, execute, debrief. I mean, for those that have been in the flying business, that’s what you do every day in the flying business. But as you expand your responsibilities beyond one mission, beyond a flight, beyond maybe a Red Flag sortie, it works for large organizations, too. So the plan part is decide what the objective is. Come up with a plan that is executable and resourced, et cetera, et cetera. And then communicate with the rest of your organization what the plan is and what their role as you go forward. Obviously, execute, expecting that there’s going to be tertiary branches and sequels that you’re going to have to perform. And then the debrief part of it, which is where we really make our improvements, which is what went well? What didn’t go well? And how can we get better for next time?

And again, in that debrief, just like we learn in everyday flying ops, everybody that’s in the mission is subject to the debrief. And that usually starts with the flight lead. And so in the debrief of my organization, it starts with me. And so my folks can debrief me on how I could be a better PACAF commander or a better boss. And then we share the lessons learned and get better for next time. And then the cycle repeats.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, sir. Gen. Van Ovost and then just Secretary Jones to wrap up, please.

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost

Thanks. Just real quickly, diverse, empowered teams. Different experience. When you’re making those teams out there that help solve these wicked problems, you need folks from all the career fields, all the services, all the best that you can bring to the problem and empower them. The first time you say no right away and you haven’t even listened to their pitch is the last time they’re going to pitch something to you. So if you really mean empowerment, then mean empowerment. Listen to what they have to say. And executing, if we fail, it’s a calculated risk and we move on. But they need to know that you’re supporting them and that their voices matter.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Thanks, ma’am. Secretary Jones.

Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones

Absolutely. So when I think of leadership, I think of leading by example. And I think that it certainly has a role also as we think about integrated deterrence. So a couple of months ago, we identified that one of our partners in the Indo-Pacific did not allow female students at their equivalent of ACSC. Certainly, that raised some questions for me. One, why? And two, who signed off on that? And so thankfully, we were able to engage with OSD. And they helped carry the water with this one country. And folks wanted to see if we might be able to do that in two or three years down the road. And I said, “No. You need to do this as soon as possible.” Because when we think about integrated deterrence, fundamentally, again, this is about our values and integrated deterrence, one of those key values has to be that 50 percent of the population is as worthy as the other 50 percent.

So thankfully, OSD carried the water. And now we will have a female officer at that school. And that other country will have two female officers for the first time at that school. And so again, I think again, integrated deterrence is most powerful when we are leading by example. And there’s no shortage of opportunities to demonstrate again, the type of country that we are and the type of partnerships that are our values are, that are, excuse me, the type of values that our partnerships should be based on and will only be stronger for it. Lastly, I think leaders always remind those that they are working with, and for, and alongside that they remind them of the main thing. And y’all, given that the moment in time that we’re in, if you don’t wake up thinking about the pacing challenge, you’re doing it wrong. That’s where we’re at.

Air and Space Forces Association’s Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

Well, thank you to our panel. Our nation is blessed. Really, in many ways our world is blessed by such proven, capable leaders with the heart for serving our nation and for taking care of our Airmen, and Guardians, and civilian workforce across and around the world. So for all three of you, it’s an honor to be on your wing. And please join me in a round of applause for Secretary Jones, Gen. Wilsbach and Gen. Van Ovost.

Air Force Sets Goals to Slash Emissions Across the Board With New Climate Action Plan

Oct. 5, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Department of the Air Force is aiming to slash emissions across its installations, non-tactical vehicles, and aircraft fleets in the coming years. It intends to aggressively pursue new forms of sustainable energy and to factor climate change into its wargames, operations, and acquisitions, according to a new action plan released Oct. 4.

The DAF’s Climate Action Plan, signed by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, lays out three priorities for the department when it comes to climate change:

Maintain air and space dominance in the face of climate risks.
Make climate-informed decisions.
Optimize energy use and pursue alternative energy sources.

In pursuit of those priorities, the 24-page document identifies six objectives for the DAF to pursue, broken down into 20 “key results” describing the department’s “future state.”

“We must prioritize air and space dominance in a security environment shaped by a changing climate, yet also recognize and reduce the department’s role in contributing to climate change,” Kendall wrote in a letter included in the action plan. “Department capabilities that provide air and space dominance and global reach are fed by a steady diet of fossil fuel, representing the bulk of the Defense Department’s carbon footprint and a continual burden on our changing climate. We will, therefore, demand increased efficiency in our warfighting systems and installations as well as strive to reduce our impact on the environment, all while enhancing our warfighting capabilities.”

Some of the most ambitious key results the Air Force and Space Force are pursuing relate to the infrastructure and logistical enterprise behind the services’ warfighting capabilities.

For example, the action plan calls for the department to reach net-zero emissions across its installations portfolio by fiscal 2046, just over two decades from now. More immediately, the department wants to cut emissions from 2008 levels in half by fiscal 2033.

To reach such a goal will require the Air Force to upgrade and modernize facilities, something the service has already started to do in places where extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., has emerged as the model for the “Installation of the Future” after being devastated by Hurricane Michael in 2018.

The Climate Action Plan calls for increasing resiliency and energy efficiency across all bases with added investments over the next several years, reaching $100 million by fiscal 2027. It also calls for every installation to complete an assessment for its risks due to climate change—some have already begun—and to incorporate the results of those assessments into their master development plans and installation energy plans, if needed.

Such plans are “focused upon resiliency measures for installations around five key areas: robustness, resourcefulness, redundancy, response, and recovery,” Edwin Oshiba, the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations, and the environment, told lawmakers in March.

Getting to net-zero emissions will also involve identifying alternative forms of energy, something the action plan addresses as well. By fiscal 2030, the department is aiming for all its electricity to be carbon pollution-free, which would include “marine energy, solar, wind, hydrokinetic, geo-thermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, renewably sourced hydrogen, and electrical energy generation from fossil resources to the extent there is active capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions,” according to the action plan. Half of that electricity would be produced within the same regional grid where the energy is consumed.

The department is also hoping for all of its non-tactical vehicles—everything from cars and buses to aircraft support equipment—to be zero emission by fiscal 2035. The action plan states that effort is already underway, largely through electric vehicles.

But while alternative forms of energy can reduce emissions from bases and ground equipment, the Air Force still has one major source that may be harder to tackle—the planes Airmen fly in every single day.

The Defense Department is one of the world’s largest consumers of fossil fuels, and the Air Force is the department’s biggest customer on that front, with jet propellant accounting for the majority of that bill.

The Air Force has experimented with alternative fuels for years now, and the Climate Action Plan calls for those experiments to progress to a test program by fiscal 2026 in which two operational USAF locations have 10 percent of their aviation fuel come from sustainable fuel blends that cost the same as or less than traditional fuel.

The project “will validate operational, infrastructure, and logistical requirements for blending and quality control in the use of sustainable aviation fuel,” the goal states.

On top of that, the action plan also calls for the department to make the traditional fuels it does use go further by increasing operational energy efficiency by 5 percent by fiscal 2027 and 7.5 percent by 2032 “through standardized use of aircraft drag reduction technologies, modern software scheduling tools, and enhanced engine sustainment practices.”

Work on drag reduction techniques and technologies has primarily focused on the mobility and refueling fleets, Oshiba said in March—“things like micro-veins and winglets that allow us to extend the range of our assets that provides operational reach with fewer assets.”

The service is also looking to develop a prototype of a blended-wing body aircraft, which would provide large internal volume and aerodynamic efficiency. The Defense Innovation Unit issued a solicitation in July for design concepts for a blended wing body tanker aircraft.

When it comes to operations, the action plan also calls for the department to do more to educate Airmen and Guardians on the effects of climate change and to consider its impacts on everything from acquisition requirements to wargaming.

A TRICARE Supplement Insurance Plan Can Help Your Family Save on Medical Costs

Oct. 5, 2022

As an active or retired member of the military, you may be receiving your health insurance coverage through TRICARE.

As with most health insurance plans, TRICARE typically does not cover 100 percent of your medical costs, except in the case of active-duty service members, who pay nothing out-of-pocket for their care.

Depending on how often you and your family members receive medical care, these out-of-pocket costs can add up. Plus, you may not always plan for these costs, so they won’t always fit into your household budget.

One way to manage out-of-pocket medical costs is to purchase a TRICARE Supplement Insurance plan.

What is TRICARE Supplement Insurance?

TRICARE Supplement Insurance reimburses persons covered by a TRICARE medical plan for qualified out-of-pocket medical expenses paid to civilian providers. This reimbursement is paid after your regular TRICARE plan pays its portion of your medical bill.

AFA TRICARE Supplement Insurance plans are available to AFA members under the age of 65 and their dependents who are covered by a TRICARE health plan. Members under 65 cannot be denied coverage based on health as long as the member is eligible for TRICARE benefits.

Support AFA and its mission by purchasing through your AFA membership

When AFA members buy their supplement insurance from AFAInsure, they’re helping the AFA to continue its mission of supporting and advocating for the United States Air and Space Forces. The plans sold through AFAInsure, including TRICARE Supplement, are group policies held by the AFA in a trust for all AFA members. AFA derives compensation from members who enroll in these plans. Your premium payments do not support other branches of the military or associations with a broader military base.

AFA offers thee supplement plans:

TRICARE Prime Supplement Insurance Plan for military retirees under age 65 and their dependents who are enrolled in TRICARE Prime.
TRICARE Select Supplement Insurance Plan for military retirees under age 65 and their dependents, and the dependents of active-duty military personnel who are enrolled in TRICARE Select.
TRICARE Reserve Select Supplement Insurance Plan for members of the Reserves or National Guard under age 65 and their dependents who are enrolled in TRICARE Reserve Select.

Each TRICARE supplement plan covers 100 percent¹ of the cost share remaining after your regular TRICARE health plan pays its share of a medical bill. This includes inpatient and outpatient care, excess benefit, ambulatory surgery and pharmacy costs.

Some supplement plans are subject to an annual deductible, which varies based on whether it covers a single individual or family.

Not all AFA members will benefit financially from a TRICARE Supplement Insurance plan. You should carefully consider you and your family’s health care needs before purchasing this plan. In some cases, the cost of the supplemental plan may exceed your regular health plan’s out-of-pocket expenses.

To learn more about the AFA’s TRICARE Supplement Insurance plans and to enroll in a plan, please visit AFA’s insurance website.

1) TRICARE Supplement Insurance Plans contain a Pre-Existing Condition Limitation. Please refer to the information on the AFAInsure.com website on exclusions and limitations, such as Pre-Existing Conditions, for TRICARE Supplement Plans.

TRICARE Form Series includes GBD-3000, GBD-3100, or state equivalents

This article explains the general purpose of the insurance described, but in no way changes or affects the policy as actually issued. In the event of a discrepancy between this article and the policy (Master Policy AGP-5924), the terms of the policy apply.

All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of the policy. Policies underwritten by Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Company detail exclusions, limitations, and terms under which the policies may be continued in full or discontinued. Complete details are in the certificate of insurance issued to each insured individual and the Master Policy issued to the policyholder. This program may vary and may not be available to residents of all states.

ID# 8666 0922

Watch, Read: Gen. Mark Kelly on the Air Force Fighter Enterprise

Oct. 5, 2022

Gen. Mark D. Kelly, commander of Air Combat Command, delivered a keynote address on the “Air Force Fighter Enterprise” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 21, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

If your firewall blocks YouTube, try this alternative link instead.

Voiceover

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Executive Vice President of the Air and Space Forces Association, Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg

Good afternoon. Air Combat Command is the primary force provider of combat air power to America’s war fighting commands. ACC’s mission is to organize, train, and equip combat-ready Airmen to control and exploit the air on behalf of the Joint force. In short, be prepared to close the kill web.

To do that, ACC must accelerate change to grow an even more lethal, capable fighter force to defeat a peer threat. The commander of Air Combat Command is responsible for leading and paving the way for both the change in capability and the capacity to defeat the burgeoning threat from China and Russia. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to the commander of Air Combat Command, Gen. Mark Kelly.

Gen. Mark D. Kelly

Thanks. Well, good afternoon and welcome back from lunch. It’s great to be back here at AFA amidst fellow Airman friends and warriors and again, thanks to the Air Force Association for the opportunity to talk to you today about the Air fighter force, kind of where it’s been, where it’s at today, and where it’s going.

Last year, I got up here and talked about the Air Force’s ‘4+1’ fighter roadmap with the four being F-22 for air superiority, which needs to stay dominant until we can facilitate a hot handover with NGAD. The F-35 and the Block 4 capabilities that we need to penetrate adversary airspace and execute air defense take down. The F-15E and EX to provide the long-range big payload and disruptive fifth-gen sensors for day-to-day competition and homeland defense. And the F-16, which remains our capacity fighter for contested competition, homeland defense, and global force management and the plus 1, A-10, which has served our nation well but is severely limited in today’s world of increasing peer challenges.

Our fighter force has always faced and continues to face a mix of challenges and opportunities. Those challenges are presented by our adversaries, budget realities, political realities, global demands, technical aspects, and readiness equities. To get the correct fighter force mix, we have to engage all the enterprise dynamics at play.

Today, like yesterday, we need our fighter force to go further. We need to sense further in a more robust electromagnetic environment and we need to engage adversaries at long range. That engagement range, advanced sensors, and weapons requirement combined with operator proficiency and readiness defines high-end capability. And the hardest thing that an Air Force does, the hardest thing that an Air Force does, that helps define a nation’s combat power is maintenance and sustainment. While sustainment also contributes to an Air Force’s true capacity, it’s what I’ll focus on today. So why capacity?

First of all, capacity is not more important than high end capability like NGAD or advanced weapons like JDAM or advanced mid-band RF or long wave IR sensors. But the specifics of advanced platform sensors and weapons are difficult to discuss in open venue.

The other reason is capacity matters a lot. Capacity matters to our Joint force, which is organized, trained, equipped, operate with air superiority and not remotely, not remotely designed to operate without it. Capacity matters to our allies and partners who look to the United States to fulfill treaty obligations and lead coalitions. Capacity matters to our elected leaders charged to raise and support our forces and who provide direction and resourcing through the National Defense Authorization Act. Capacity matters to our strategic adversaries who are committed to winning the sensing battle, the readiness battle, the high end capability scrum and unquestionably, unquestionably defeat us with greater fighter capacities.

A bit about our capacity readiness and peer competition journey over the past three decades to review how we arrived at the present day. We deployed to Desert Shield, Desert Storm in 1990 with a portion of our 4,000 fighters that were organized, trained, equipped to fight the Soviet Union.

The Air Force went to Desert Storm with at least seven significant advantages over any other air force on the planet. We had an aircraft capability advantage. We had a fighter capacity advantage. We had an advanced sensor and weapons advantage, a combat readiness and warfighting credibility advantage. We had uncontested logistics, uninterrupted command and control, and adequate air base defense.

Thirty two years ago, our fighter capacity, combined with these other six attributes allowed us to deploy from around the globe without risking our ability to compete forward, our ability to respond to crisis without risk to our homeland defense requirements. Although Desert Storm technically ended on 28 February 1991, the Air Force fighter force, along with many of our fellow service and joint partners, never left the Middle East. But lacking a peer adversary, we significantly reduced the fighter capacity required to support that 24/7, 365 CENTCOM effort.

We continue the reduction in our fighter capacity through the ’90s and on 9/11, essentially one decade removed from Desert Storm, we had divested from 134 fighter squadrons down to 88. For a lot of obvious reasons, 9/11 was a huge inflection point for the entire nation and our military. Throughout the week immediately following 9/11, we understandably executed a week of crisis, action, global force management sourcing.

While that pace of force element sourcing was expected from 12 to 19 September 2001, we probably couldn’t predict at the time that we’d follow that first week with another 1,000 weeks of crisis action global force management sourcing, where we deployed our force from across the globe at a rate that exceeded our ability to generate the force. Whether it’s money, muscle, tissue, morale, or combat power, if you expend it at a rate that exceeds your ability to generate it, that rarely ends well. We literally ate the muscle tissue of the Air Force in the form of reduced fighter capacity, reduced readiness, putting hard miles on older aircraft, driving more extensive sustainment efforts.

While the collective we, we the U.S., might have overlooked the impact to our conventional combat power, our peer adversaries definitely took note and they saw a once-in-a-century opportunity to increase confrontation and secure gains at minimal risk. With this increased competition in our two pacing theaters, it’s understandable that today, the INDOPACOM commander considers the PACAF-assigned fighter squadrons as essentially threshold forces required to execute his day-to-day combatant command theater campaign plans.

With Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and threats to NATO, it’s understandable that the EUCOM commander also considers the USAFE-assigned units as threshold forces required to fulfill NATO commitments and execute his combatant command theater campaign plans. This increased peer competition requiring combatant command exclusive utilization of their assigned fighter squadrons has left a smaller U.S.-based fighter force to fulfill rotational requirements to CENTCOM, to respond to crisis, execute homeland defense, and POTUS support.

A little bit about that peer competition. Whether it’s international airspace, high seas, outer space, the Arctic or cyber space, the majority of peer competition occurs in the global commons. While sometimes aggressive, most of this competition is professional as nations convey their national perspective and their intentions.

The most intense area of competition is when and where a nation seeks to migrate a common area into a new national sovereign. There’s a lot of reasons for this. Access to resources, area of influence, and the fact that once they subsume a common area into their sovereign space, it is significantly harder to compete against the nation in that new sovereign space.

Competition in the global commons often precedes competition of the highly contested sovereigns. It’s important to delineate between forces that compete in the global commons and forces that can actually compete in the highly contested sovereigns. It is that stark increase in pure competition in the sovereigns, it should garner undivided attention because competition in the sovereigns runs the risk to escalate into conflict in the sovereigns.

This is why you need a high-capacity, highly cable air force to keep adversaries out of your sovereigns and to retain the capability to punch into their sovereign space. That’s why we designed to build SR-71s, RQ-170s, F-117s and B-2s, to operate over sovereign territory, built cyber capabilities to punch into sovereign networks, advanced fighters to establish air superiority across contested airspace.

If you’re going to be a resolute world power, you have to compete not just in the global commons but also in the highly contested sovereigns because if you can’t compete in the highly contested sovereigns, you can’t fight in the highly contested sovereigns.And you have to recognize the correlation of capacity, readiness, competition, and risk.

Since we’re at AFA, and since I only have 40 minutes with you, we’ll limit the timeline discussion to 32 years and limit the force element discussion to Air Force fighters, a rather narrow scope of time and combat power, but the relationship of conventional capacity, readiness, competition, and risk could be discussed over a timeline of centuries across numerous capabilities for any service across any war fighting domain.

As discussed, we’ve become smaller over the past 31 years. There is little risk to becoming smaller if there’s a commensurate decrease in deployment taskings and global security risks. The exacerbating challenge of getting smaller over the past 31 years is also getting older in terms of airframe life. The slide’s a little counterintuitive, as newer is up top and older is towards the bottom of the graph. There’s a lot that goes into readiness equation and one of them is airframe life. As airframe life directly drives your overall sustainment capability by aircraft downtime for maintenance, down for supply, down for depo repair, and down for modernization.

One of the other readiness levers is aviator flight hours and exercises. This decrease in flying hours added to the decrease in our fighter capacity, an increase in aircraft age, represents a significant impact to our nation’s conventional deterrence.

Accordingly, we should not remotely be surprised at how our strategic adversaries have responded to decrease in conventional deterrence. Nature abhors a vacuum, and unfortunately so do geopolitics. While I’m not going to beam off in a Newton’s third law of every action, there is corresponding opposite reaction, there is an unambiguous contrast of conventional deterrence and over peer competition.

A quick visit to our peer competitors would likely have detailed information on the third Taiwan Straits crisis in 1996, as well as the Mischief Reef incident. Then, PRC introduces the Su-27 into their air force. Four years later in 2000, they add the Su-30 to their arsenal. In 2001, a Chinese J-8 collides midair with a U.S. Navy EP-3 resulting the loss of the J-8 and emergency divert of the EP-3. U.S. Navy boat incident occurs in 2001, and in 2005 Chinese introduced the Chengdu J-10, their first production fourth-gen fighter.

Soon after, they field the PL-12 air-to-air missile to directly compete with U.S. fire power. More high seas confrontation with the U.S. Navy ship Impeccable incident in 2009. 2014 to ’16 saw the height of PRC island building in the South China Sea. Russia annexes Crimea in 2014. Also, in 2014, the Chinese introduced their advanced flanker, the J-16. In 2016, the PRC deploys surface-to-air missiles to the Paracel Islands. That same year, Su-35 enters service with the Chinese air force. In 2017, the J-20 China’s own fifth-gen fighter enters service.

Soon after, they introduced the PL-15, long range missile, which greatly challenges U.S. long range missiles. USS Decatur incident occurs in 2018. 2021 starts a spike of aircraft incursions in the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone. 2022, Russia invades Ukraine on 24 February, exactly 31 years to the day of the Desert Storm ground invasion. Last month, PLA live-fire drills are executing in response to Speaker Pelosi’s CODEL visit.

At this juncture, some folks may surmise that I’m trying to make a case for 134 fighter squadrons of 10-year-old aircraft, where pilots get over 20 hours a month. While that wouldn’t outright be wrong, it would completely miss the point. The point is, in 1990 what nation state would want to challenge that level of conventional combat power? What nation state wants to pick a fight with an Air Force of 134 highly cable fighter squadrons that are organized, trained, equipped, and honed to a fine edge to fight a peer adversary.

The answer is no nation in their right mind, and accordingly, when you have conventional overmatch, strategic risk is low. But that’s not where we’ve arrived in terms of conventional deterrence and that’s not where we’re headed with respect to peer confrontation.

By any measure, we have departed the era of conventional overmatch to arrive at growing strategic risk. We’ve seen an increase in peer confrontation from Russia, to drive the nations of Europe to increase their defense budgets, to rapidly change national policies, to assist Ukraine and for Finland and Sweden to apply to join NATO.

Similarly, the discussion for our nation, in our nation’s air force, is how. How after 30 years of increased peer confrontation do you best contribute to our nation’s conventional deterrents to better manage strategic risk? To solve any fighter force challenge, you must engage in work—the range, sensor, weapons, readiness, sustainment, enterprise, as well as capability and capacity. We don’t have time to discuss all those equities, and it’s challenging to discuss high-end sensors and weapons in an open forum, but that said, capacity also has to be carefully navigated also due to releaseability concerns.

Every service has classified readiness metrics provided by the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. Combatant commands have operational plans that are also close hold. Our own internal TACAIR study was classified and global force management, once you tie specific units, specific locations and specific timelines, outstrips this venue.

However, the Air Force We Need study, the 386 operational squadrons directed by the 2018 NDAA was unclassified and correctly highlighted that the Air Force needs 62 fighter squadrons. So accurate and unclassified studies do exist for our discussion.

In basic terms, the fighter aviation arm of Air Force has to do four main tasks. We have to compete forward across the globe. We have to respond to crisis wherever it presents itself. We have to protect the homeland, including the president, and we have to be ready to fight, which requires a robust training regimen.

As we compete forward, we first have to compete per the National Defense Strategy in our pacing theaters. With China growing more confrontational every day, the INDOPACOM commander requires 13 fighter squadrons to execute his combatant command theater campaign plans. The EUCOM commander tasks six fighter squadrons, and it’ll grow to seven, to fulfill our NATO obligations and execute theater campaign plans, amidst Russian aggression in Europe.

As mentioned, we can’t dive into the specifics of global force management in terms of exact units, numbers, dates or locations, but we’ve had seven, eight, upwards of nine fighter squadrons in CENTCOM at any one time just in the past few years. As we don’t have any permanently assigned fighter squadrons in CENTCOM, those units are rotational through our four-bin Air Force Force Generation readiness construct.

For ease of explanation, if, and that’s an if, we only had two fighter squadrons in theater for CENTCOM commander tasks across each of the four bins of AFFORGEN, that would require eight fighter squadrons for CENTCOM, so 28 fighter squadrons is required to compete forward day-to-day across the globe.

To respond to crisis, we have immediate response force options for the secretary of defense. Again, I can’t say exactly how many fighter squadrons we provide for crisis response options, but it’s called SECDEF options plural, not SECDEF options singular. We’ll just say two fighter squadrons across the four bins of AFFORGEN requires us to have a minimum of eight fighter squadrons dedicated to respond to crisis.

Those eight immediate response force fighter squadrons added to the 28 compete forward fighter squadrons is 36 fighter squadrons, but before we compete forward and before we respond to crisis, we have some must-pay bills here at home. Homeland Defense is the National Defense Strategy’s number one priority. The Air Force has protected our nation skies for decades from a high of 5,800 fighters on alert in 1958 to a low of four armed fighters on 9/11.

In 2010, the Air Force operated 18 alert locations across the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. Our homeland defense lay down has not changed dramatically since then and the specifics are not releasable, but for day-to-day capacity requirements, while these alert sites do not need an entire fighter squadron to execute their homeland defense operations, the Air Force needs eight fighter squadron equivalents to ensure the skies of our nation remain safe.

Those eight fighter squadrons combined with the previous 36 that are required to compete forward and respond to crisis brings us to 44 fighter squadrons. Related but completely separate from Homeland Defense is support to the president. Everyone knows that there’s top cover for key presidential events—State of the Union, Summit of the Americas, United Nations General Assembly, Camp David, et cetera. While this is related, it is not the same as Homeland Defense and is a completely separate force element that provides POTUS support.

Our Air National Guard and our Air Force Reserve fighter squadrons are mobilized to execute most of our POTUS support requirements across a 24-month cycle. When they’re done with that unique no-fail mission, they often go straight back to Homeland Defense at their home station. The eight fighter squadrons that rotate in and out of POTUS support added to our compete forward force, our respond to crisis force, our homeland defense force, totals 52 fighter squadrons.

Whether it’s new F-35s in the Lakenheath or Vermont, Madison, Alabama, et cetera, or as new units receive the F-15EX, we always have units in conversion and modernization. If there is an insufficient number of units in conversion, that means your fighter force is either getting smaller, getting older, becoming less capable, or all three.

When these units are training new maintainers or aviators or resetting sustainment infrastructure, they are not available to deploy unless there’s a national emergency. Those eight fighter squadrons combined with our compete forward force, respond to crisis units, homeland defense, and POTUS support total 60 fighter squadrons. So 60 multi-role fighter squadrons is the simple, unclassified math required for day-to-day ops, not combat.

A few things as we navigate this challenge and chart a way ahead in an increasingly dangerous world. We don’t have 60 multi-role fighter squadrons. We have 48 fighter squadrons and we have nine A-10 attack squadrons. The beauty of the A-10 and it’s a beauty, is that there are sons and daughters of our nation over the past 20 years of counterinsurgency ops are alive today because the A-10 showed up to an intense troops in contact close air support fight, so the Hog has rightfully earned its spot in the Combat Aviation Hall of Fame.

But today, permissive airspace is drying up. All of our pacing theater campaign plans, Homeland Defense, POTUS support, Baltic air policing, much less a high end fight, requires multi-role fighters. With 48 fighter squadrons working to execute the requirement of 60 fighter squadrons and with the must pay bills of Homeland Defense and POTUS support, we take a hit in our compete forward effort, a hit in readiness, a hit in modernization, and a hit in our respond to crisis requirements where the crisis that they’re responding to is often a crisis of insufficient fighter capacity.

This is an acute issue for our Air Force and we are not the first nation to face this challenge, nor are we the only air force currently facing requirement-to-resource disconnect. The Germans face this challenge in 1942 and they developed some incredible weapon systems in their strategy to win World War II. This effort realized a generational leap in capability. The first rocket-powered fighter, ballistic missile technology, unmanned aerial vehicles, the first fighter jet and the first operational jet bomber, which, by the way, was the last German aircraft of the war to fly over the U.K. in April 1945.

These capability advances are truly remarkable, but the fatal flaw on the German strategy is that they accomplished these incredible capability advances at the expense of both their fighter capacity and their combat readiness and were completely destroyed by overwhelming Allied capacity.

Our nation, our Air Force are at their finest when we’re faced with a big challenge. We have one now and that’s to field a combat credible conventional deterrence in the face of overt peer confrontation. The requirement for 60 multi-role fighter squadrons for day-to-day ops around the globe is not going away anytime soon.

That’s one of the reasons that the Air Force We Need study accurately determine that we need 60-plus fighter squadrons. That’s also the reason that former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson’s Senate testimony that, “The Air Force is too small for what the nation’s asking it to do,” is still factual. In terms of the how, first, follow the fighter roadmap, with a minimum of 72 new fighters a year to a highly capable, high capacity, multi-role fighter force.

Second, when you’re working this topic—range sensors, weapons readiness, capability, sustainment capacity, all of it matters. The strength of your fighter force is only as strong is your weakest attribute. Third, when you’re operating in a tough neighborhood, travel with friends who know how to fight. We have to leverage key security pacts like AUKUS, key alliances like NATO and key partner agreements to keep a coalition fighter capacity and capability advantage.

I didn’t have time to talk about it today, but we have to accelerate the combat collaborative aircraft research and development as well as the requisite autonomy authority and resilient comms that they’re going to need to address our fighter capability and capacity challenges.

Finally, we must realize that our multi-role capacity fighters that execute our capacity missions, they free up our high-capability fighters, our long range killers, that are need to execute peer competition and close our long-range kill chains. With that, thanks again to AFA and for your time. I’m happy to take any questions at all. Thanks.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg

You got a packed audience, so why don’t I just take the questions for you.

Gen. Mark D. Kelly

OK.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg

This is not rehearsed by the way. What we’d like to do is pick up from last year’s presentation, which Gen. Kelly just addressed, and that’s the fighter force. And we still had some folks in the audience back then that I’ve kept the questions. I’d like to touch on a few of those, sir. The first one is, since the 60 fighter squadron replacement that you laid out just now, it is day-to-day ops, what is the quote capacity solution for a major theater war?

Gen. Mark D. Kelly

Well, major theater war is aptly named because it’s going to consume a majority of anything and everything you thought you had enough of—your fuel, your weapons, your aircraft, your equipment, your Airmen, your money, your time, your focus and resourcing in major theater war from a force that is considered healthy is still going to drive challenges and it’s going to require some pretty quick discussion, some prioritization, and decisions.

Rapidly, it’ll be evident that, well, the chess pieces you have are the chess pieces you have. In terms of the fighter force, as I described, as 48 fighter squadrons and nine attack squadrons. We’re going to put them exactly where we’re told to put them, but it goes a little bit to former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, I think it was 2003 or 2004 when he stated, “You go to war with the military you have, not the military you want or wish you had.”

As we resource a major theater war from a capacity limited force, by definition it’ll require utilizing units that were originally intended for some other task and purpose. First one that comes to mind because it’s often the first one that comes to mind to our great friends and the joint staff is utilizing units that were intended for another theater.

Today, as we sit here, our F-22s are deployed from our pacing theater at Elmendorf over to EUCOM to help buy down the risk brought on by Russian aggression. Second way is to utilize units that were intended for another timeframe. When theater risk spikes, the theater forces engage that, we augment it with units that are earmarked for this time period, our commit bin, but if the risk still outstrips that, there’s going to be people that peek over the fence and look at the other bins of our AFFORGEN model, ones that are earmarked for six months and a year down the road who do not have the requisite rest or the requisite readiness. And if we choose to use them, we could do that, but we would continue decades of overconsumption of the Air Force.

Similarly to that, the third way would be to utilize unit that are intended for another rung of your escalation ladder. We don’t normally mobilize, activate our garden reserve at the first spike of risk, but you could, but you wouldn’t have that option in reserve for your forces in reserve.

The fourth option would be to utilize units intended for frankly a completely different mission within your peer fight requires. You could send in your 9, 8, 10 attack squadrons, and Hog pilots are incredibly courageous, brave, skilled warriors. They’re going to go and their performance would make our nation proud. Guarantee it.

But I would offer that while every human endeavor in a shooting war requires some semblance of individual courage, skill, and the acceptance of individual risk, if the gap between your theory of victory and your force construct needs to be bridged by extreme skill, extreme courage and the acceptance of extreme personal risk, that’s probably, in my opinion, a key indicator you need to look at your theory of victory or your force construct.

Probably, the last one, at least the last one I could think of is, and because it’s often the last option chosen by militaries that are on their final leg, is to utilize units intended for your institution, i.e. your institutional force. For the fighter force, that means you could commit all, part, or some of your formal training unit, operational test, aggressors, weapons school, et cetera. If you use part of the supply chain in there, it’s probably not going to break glass, but if you’re leaning heavily, heavily on this course of action, my opinion is, and history would tell you, a thousand years of history would tell you, that you’ve probably migrated past the juncture where you’re trying to win and you’ve essentially, I’d say, pulled the goalie and you’re trying really hard not to lose.

These are decisions we would make and we’d expect to make in major theater war. One of the themes of the brief that hopefully came out is we are just challenged by having to make those decisions day in, day out, in our day-to-day fight. Thanks.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg

Sir, let’s take a second question here. That since you referenced to Germany’s capability development, absent a parallel capacity surge on their part is an example from 80 years ago, let’s bring it to today, do you believe that it translates well to today’s challenges?

Gen. Mark D. Kelly

Well, short answer is absolutely, yes. I believe it translates. It frankly doesn’t matter if it was 80 years ago or 80 days ago. A nation’s strategy almost always, almost hinges on three rather timeless foundational criteria that most folks that’ve been doing this for three decades are aware of. That’s first of all, national will, commitment, sense of urgency. Number two is a nation’s ability to identify and develop true war winning capability. Three is the nation’s ability to produce those capabilities at scale and sufficient capacity.

As far as the question goes, Germany, one, they were facing an existential threat. There’s some natural motivation, sense of urgency and commitment. Number two, their research development, science technology, engineering enterprise was world class. Matter of fact, it was the world standard in almost every line of effort, shy of nuclear physics. It’s proven out by what they developed under fire.

Their Achilles heel was essentially what the RAF and the Eighth Air Force bombed day and night, which was their production capacity. They couldn’t produce that scale, at least not any scale that would appreciably changed the difference. If folks don’t have my affinity, they’re more aligned to my wife, the lack of affinity for history, they want a more contemporary example, there’s a reason why Secretary Kendall, Chief Brown and others often reference China.

Three of those reasons are one, very well-articulated, unambiguous national commitment and their worldview of their autocracy at the top of it. Number two, their research development, science technology and engineering enterprise, well-developed to identify and develop true war winning capability. Three, they’re resourcing strategy to produce those capabilities at scale. That doesn’t mean they’ve had an easy or short path. They’ve been working at this for decades, decades and they’ll get together, I think it’s next month, mid-next month, to do their 20th National Party Congress.

It’s mostly a political get-together, but they’ll be breakout sessions if not official, unofficial. They’ll assess essentially that slide, their ability to produce the airspace, cyber, and naval force to fight the U.S., as they’ve done in every National Party congress, which they do every five years. Those discussions generate, I’m sure we’re not invited, significant amount of discussion, debate, decisions. Their decisions in the past that have seen them cut their ground force in half to resource the airspace, cyber, naval force they need to fight the U.S.

I think it’s 300,000 they’ve cut just in the last five or six years, I think, so don’t quote me on that and definitely don’t misquote me and say Kelly recommends the U.S. to do the same thing. The fact of matter is, the Chinese example and the German example are simply statements of fact, and we’ve been running parallel processes in our nation, the exact same timelines. As a matter of fact, 80 years ago when the German Reichstag was directing the Luftwaffe to develop game-changing capability, the War Department was directing the U.S. Army Air Force to produce more winning capacity to the tune of roughly 2.3, 2.4 million Airmen, just shy of 80,000 aircraft.

As that process runs its course in our nation today, and it does, if we’re told to accelerate the development of NGAD, our sixth-gen air dominance fighter and produce it at significant scale, that’s how we’ll execute and we’ll defeat any force on the planet. If that process runs its course and we’re told to commit billions of dollars to refurbish 35- and 45-year-old airplanes, that’s how we’ll execute. I apologize, the short answer to your question is yeah, I do believe that any industrial nation’s journey through this force buildup and strategy is applicable to help inform our journey.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg

Sir, final question. Obviously the Space Force and the Air Force is observing and oriented on the current events that you just laid out in your presentation. What do you think the lessons will be for the fighter force coming out of the Ukraine conflict?

Gen. Mark D. Kelly

OK. I believe, this is a personal opinion, I believe that institutions and individuals will largely, I’d say focus, highlight, and learn what they want to learn out of the Ukraine conflict. I think our great Army partners will highlight that you shouldn’t take an undisciplined, untrained, unprofessional, unprotected, unresourced, undisciplined armor column and race it to another nation’s capital.

I believe our shipmates in the Navy, finest Sailors on the planet, will highlight fleet defense and sea control. I believe our brother and sister Guardians will highlight the incredible contributions of our unblinking ISR constellation, our communication infrastructure, our precision navigation and timing infrastructure in LEO and elsewhere. I think all those observations will be accurate.

I think folks that are in the know, and that’s the key word is in the know, of what our cyber and our intel Airmen have done in this conflict for the defense of Europe, support of NATO and frankly the bastion of defense of freedom and democracy in Ukraine will know that this conflict was their finest hour by every sense of the word.

To your question, fighter force, I frankly think it’s more of a question for the nation that we should have. We should elevate it out of fighter force, out of bomber force, out of ISR force and ask ourselves, as contributors to the national discussion is if a nation wants an air force that can establish air superiority at the time and place of its choosing, execute air defense takedown at the time and place of its choosing, execute persistent global decision attack at the exact same time and place of our choosing, set the conditions for a low-casualty, 100-hour ground campaign comparable to Desert Storm, well then you need the first-class Air Force.

If on the other hand, that’s considered too fiscally challenging or you’re constrained by legacy budgetary rules and makes it unobtainable and you’re OK, and, it’s not an or, and you’re OK with months, more like years, of bloody trench warfare and a grinding artillery duel with thousands of casualties on the scale of Ukraine or World War I, you don’t need a first rate Air force. A second rate Air Force will handle that just fine.

But as we visit all of our great Airmen here at AFA and I get the privilege of going over with Gen. Finerty to visit the great elected leaders we have on the Hill, and they work hard, their staffers work hard, they commit a whole lot of their life and energy away from home here. We, by definition, whether you’ve been wearing the cloth of the nation for 36 months or 36 years, you owe them by law you best military advice.

When this topic comes up of a first rate Air Force or a second rate Air Force, I would offer that one—or they’d be voters and taxpayers—one, choose wisely. Two, choose knowing that China’s building a first rate Air Force. Three, finally, I’d say choose knowing what we knew before 24 February, and that is when it comes to a nation’s blood, treasure, stature on the globe, the only thing more expensive than a first rate Air Force is a second rate Air Force. Thanks for your time. Appreciate you being here.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg

After a combat sortie, there’s only three words you want to hear in the debrief, you crushed it. Let’s give Gen. Kelly a big hand. Thanks very much.