Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of Air Forces Central Command; Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus, deputy commander of U.S. Forces Korea; Maj. Gen. Derek France, commander of the Third Air Force; and Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, commander of United States Space Forces Indo-Pacific, all participated in a panel discussion moderated by Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.), Director of STEM Education Programs at AFA, on the challenges of defending forward bases, one of the key operational imperatives for the Air Force. Watch the video or read the transcript below.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you so much. Although the last U.S. service member to die by an enemy airstrike was in 1953 during the Korean War, China and Russia have made vast strides in missile technology since then. The advent of cruise missiles, the proliferation of unmanned aircraft and improved ballistic missiles make our overseas bases increasingly vulnerable. It is my huge honor to introduce some air and space force leaders working this problem on the front lines every day.
Lieutenant General Scott Pleus, Deputy Commander, United States Forces Korea, Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich, Commander U.S. Air Force’s Central Command, Major General Derek France, Commander of Third Air Force, and Brigadier General Tony Mastalir, Commander, U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific.
General Grynkewich, what are some unique sovereignty considerations when defending a military installation in a foreign country? And are there any lessons learned that you have to share on shaping host nation agreements?
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich:
Yeah, sure. That’s a really good question, and I think I’ll answer it in a bit of a roundabout way. So first off, most of the bases that we have in any region of the world, I would argue, but for sure in Air Force’s Central are not just U.S. Air Force bases. We are hosted by the host nation, whether that’s at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, that is a Royal Saudi Air Force base. Same thing with Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar and on and on. All of those locations have both forces from the host nation and our own forces there.
So at the base level, the base defense level, you actually have to do a fair amount of work to integrate the base defenses that are there, particularly with counter-UAS systems, with the proliferation of those technologies that threaten us and, frankly, the great work that our industry and our services, the Army and the Air Force, have done in fielding capabilities that can counter those threats. All of that has to be integrated, not just amongst the U.S. forces that are at a base, but again, with that partner force that is there hosting you.
I’d also say that, at the higher operational level, there’s another layer of integration with partners that has to be executed. And so in the Central Command region of responsibility, we are focusing on people, partners, and innovation. And if you center on that word partners, one of our key requirements that we have going forward that’s been tasked all the way down from the President to the Secretary is to look at how we drive the regional integration of air and missile defense. And so as Area Air Defense Commander, I’m constantly working with other Air Chiefs and Air Defense Chiefs around the region, figuring out what radar data can be shared, what are the tactics, techniques, and procedures that we’re going to use, how are we going to decide what country’s aircraft or what country’s patriot battery or what country’s counter-UAS system that’s on the ground is going to engage a particular target.
There’s a lot to unpack in all of that, but you can’t do it without your partners. None of us, in this day and age, when you’ve got 360 degree threats, complex attacks across all the threats that you just mentioned, none of us have the resources to do that defensive work alone. It’s going to take every service and every partner nation working together.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Awesome, sir. General Pleus, how do you balance the natural tensions between host nations, other components and the air component when it comes to setting your defended asset list?
Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus:
The challenge that you run into in a host nation environment like Seventh Air Force in Korea is the natural tension that occurs between the national authority in this state of Korea, Korea’s government, and then interest for the United States and trying to balance the two. I think the easiest way to describe it is the fact that we fall back on joint doctrine. We go through the joint combined theater, air and missile defense process. It’s a process that our Iraq counterparts are very familiar with and it’s one that we use. And it also not only cuts through all of the, if you will, friction that occurs between the services, but it also allows you to have, in this case, a host nation that comes to the table and understands the process.
I think one of the challenges that you run into inside of the process itself is developing the critical asset list and then, from that, now going to the defended asset list. I think everybody can agree across the spectrum on what is a critical asset in a theater, whether that’s a host nation asset. In the case of the Iraq government, it might be their presidential White House, as they call it, or the People’s House. It may be a Korean air base or it could be a U.S. air base. And I don’t think anybody really argues about the critical asset list. Where the real tension comes is when you get to what you’re going to defend.
Korea itself is probably… To give you an example, Seoul is twice as dense as Manhattan is when it comes to the amount of civilians that live inside of that area. And the area itself is not much bigger than Denver. So the friction is caused by the fact that if I defend everywhere, I’m really defending nowhere. And that, I think, is where you have a process in place, in my situation, with a Joint Forces Commander, who has combined forces underneath his authority during war time. He now has that ability to make a true assessment across national authorities and then make the decision on what becomes defended.
Where you get into the each is is, is Osan Air Base more important than Kwang Ju Air Base? Is Daegu Air Base more important than Kunsan Air Base? And that’s where you really start cutting hairs where the difference between it can be a national argument. But we’ve been very lucky with our partners over in Korea that we’ve never ended up in anything more than just a very professional and frank discussion. The caveat to that always is what other other assets can, in this case, the Koreans bring to the fight? What other assets could they bring to provide additional assets to defend the critical asset list?
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Outstanding, sir.
Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir:
Stu, could I riff off that just for a second? Can you hear me?
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, I can hear you.
Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir:
So first of all, thank you to AFA for hosting this and congratulations on the name change to the Air and Space Forces Association. I was actually at this panel in Orlando a year ago when we talked about standing up space components for the first time. We didn’t quite get there yet at that point, but glad to be back now that we have. But just off of what General Pleus was talking about, and when you look at what the Guardians are providing in terms of missile warning in a lot of these areas, even if something is not on a defended asset list, having that warning has proved time and time again continues to prove beneficial, saves lives, has done so in Ukraine. We saw that in Al Asad, we’ve seen it in UAE. Having that first, that overhead persistent IR that then we’re able to get that word out immediately at the need of relevancy so that you can take the proper precautions continues to save lives.
So missile defense notwithstanding, the missile warning piece, and again, let’s be honest, we’ve got bad actors. We covered that on what’s happening on Penn and we processed 565 missile events just last year, most of them coming out of neighbors to the north on Penn. So it continues to be a dangerous place, and I think missile warning is an important part of that.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Outstanding, thank you. Gentlemen, I was going to ask. Obviously, that’s a situation in Korea. You see a similar situation with our allies in Europe in Central Command?
Maj. Gen. Derek France:
Certainly, certainly in Europe. I mean the complexity of the number of nations that are close by each other and in close proximity and then overlaid with a NATO construct that, in a lot of ways, works really well as far as getting those nations on the same sheet of music. But there are national caveats to each of those and what they hold is important, is very different. And they’re all within that threat ring, so absolutely.
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich:
Yeah. So I think the dynamic plays out very similar what General Pleus mentioned on Penn. The difference for us, and I presume for Trapper as well, is it’s the multilateral nature of all the different nations that we have to set the priorities with. And so you have a multi-variable problem where if you now prioritize an asset in one country over another country, it might be a three-way national discussion that evolves about the relative prioritization. But we’re actually very fortunate in CENTCOM in that some of our partners are incredibly capable when it comes to defending their bases. UAE, during the attacks that were just about a year ago in January, their version of September 11, if you will, when the Houthis launched ballistic missiles at Al Dhafra, it was the UAE who launched their THAAD missiles first. They had their Patriots engaged. U.S. Patriot’s also engaged, but the UAE was very capable.
The Saudis, likewise, have proven very capable of defending things that are important to them as they look at the threats that have come at them for the last several years of one-way attack UAS’s flowing in. And Israel, of course. Extremely capable partner in the region now as well, now part of U.S. Central Command, a very good integrated air missile defense. So what we find is that if something is important to a particular country, they will often dedicate their national assets to defense of it. And then when we look at a multi-national lay down from a coalition perspective, and we’re talking about defending particular bases, it becomes a little bit more difficult of a conversation.
Maj. Gen. Derek France:
And I apologize, but one more follow on to that that we’ve seen in Europe for sure is it is somewhat scenario dependent. You like to have a static list of each, but certainly in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the one strategy that the theater looked at was, “Hey, do we prioritize things that are on the eastern flank based on proximity to the fighting and the threat that might be real there versus a theater perspective on maybe some more important, generically speaking, that may be further west.” So there was that balance as well to contend with that was scenario-specific to the Ukraine invasion.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you, sir. So General France, with threats ranging from small UASs to theater ballistic missiles, how does the Air Force strike the right balance between target-rich, but more easily defended main bases and less target rich, but more easily or less defendable forward operating bases?
Maj. Gen. Derek France:
This is a great question. Thanks for the invitation to be up here and explain a couple things of how we see that balance in Europe and USAFE. And I’ll talk specifically to USAFE. Although we have a wing in Africa, it’s a different problem set and certainly different threat dynamics there. To start off, the main operating bases have to be there. There are nodes for logistics, there are nodes for C2. They’re what we project power from. So the balance clearly has to tip in their favor.
So if you don’t protect those correctly, then a forward operating base doesn’t make any sense because you’d have nothing to go back to. I will say that in USAFE right now, there’s a couple things we’re working on that focus on those main operating bases, and the first is having an understanding and having a network of sensors that’s fused together centrally so that we have an accurate picture and some accurate air domain awareness.
Right now, the way it exists is we’ve got limited sensors, limited fusing, and with limited indications of warnings, we can hack the clock and it becomes an eighth grade math problem of a cruise missile’s traveling at a certain speed and we think it was launched from this territory and it could be here at a certain time and make decisions based on that. Whereas what we need to get to is a network of sensors that is fused, that every piece, including our coalition partners, airborne, ground base, passive sensors, all fuse a picture that we have a little more fidelity on what’s coming our way.
As we look at our main operating bases, USAFE right now is doing a fair amount of work on air base air defense and specifically looking at the main operating bases. And we think along the lines of those as passive type of defense, which is your classic conception and concealment to dispersal on the MOB to things that recover a base and fight the base like rapid one repair and things along those lines.
Our active defense right now is somewhat limited as far as a kinetic reaction to a threat if we can see it and cue something on it. And then the BMC2, to actually command and control that. And this is really where we’re trying to get after having wings that are able to make decisions along the lines of their air defense of their MOB. And so the team right now is proposing something along the lines of a BDOC, but we call it a ADOC, to where it has sensor feeds in and a wing commander can make a decision about air defense posture levels and what he’s doing or she’s doing on MOB and to the extent of even launching potentially fighters to intercept cruise missiles if we have enough indications and warnings.
Your question asked about the balance between MOB and a forward operating base, and I would say that while the main operating bases have to be primary, there’s some advantages to doing a forward operating base in that you have deterrence capability, confused targeting, and we’re going to talk ACE later on, so we won’t get into the aspects of that.
But to be able to do all of that and the assurance of our allies by putting U.S. assets that are out there as far as a NATO piece on the eastern flank, but all of those things, active, passive and the C2, become much more complicated. For example, if you want to do dispersal on a MOB and you’re at Spangdahlem or one of our main operating bases, it’s easy enough because the wing commander, essentially, can call the shots and make moves on that installation. If you’re at a four operating base, you may have one apron where you have limited ability to disperse on the MOB and defend yourself that way. And the same holds true with active defense. A lot of ROE considerations at a host installation, the command and control that goes up, in some cases, to their national chain, to very high levels, et cetera, all complicates that. So much more complicated on a forward operating base to do that. Thanks.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
And, gentlemen, do y’all have any perspective on that question?
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich:
I’ve just got one thing that I’ll emphasize that Trapper mentioned and that is trying to figure out how you delegate the right authorities down to the air expeditionary wing commander or the wing commander depending on the theater and what you call them, but that is when you hear the Chief talk about mission command, that is mission command. Trying to figure out how to provide precise intent so that your wing commander on the ground can make smart decisions about dispersing forces from a MOB to a forward operating location, make smart decisions about engaging.
And by the way, that Air Defense Center on each base has to be able to integrate with a theater architecture, so if you’ve got DCA fighters or Patriots that are the first layer of defense, as leakers get through, you’ve got to have clear communication from those tactical firing units, if you will, into a BDOC or a BADC, a Base Air Defense Center, that can do the final engagement. So there’s a host of different mission command and the importance for Airmen to understand the tenets of mission command, how you provide clear intent, how you interpret intent when it’s given to you from a higher echelon, and then come up with your own mission-type orders inside your organization is something that I just wanted to highlight. So thanks.
Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir:
Yeah, so I completely agree with that perspective. One, when I think about the INDOPACOM Theater, one area I’ll deviate a little bit from a space perspective, is instead of forward operating base, looking at, “How do I protect the air component and the maritime component schema maneuver in the first and second island chain?” And when you think about all of the buildup and forces that we’ve seen with China just within the last five to six years and the number of satellites that have been put on orbit and the number of those satellites that are specifically ISR, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, and let’s be honest, that’s all about find, fix, track, target.
It’s the F2T2 against Airmen, against sailors, against soldiers and Marines that are there to fight in that theater. So when I think about protecting that scheme of maneuver and working closely with U.S. Space Command, working closely with the intelligence community, working closely with the ground assets that we have at SPACEFOR-INDOPAC, and then understanding the timing and tempo that’s necessary to achieve the combatant commander’s priorities and objectives, that’s something that we’ve gotten to a point where it’s not just a nice to have, it’s a requirement. We’re at a point now where space, I’d say in the past, we increase precision, lethality, ability to project. Space has done a lot of things over the years.
We’ve now gotten to the point where we don’t want to go into that fight without space protecting that scheme of maneuver because that’s a losing proposition. So as we build out the component and we try to better understand how do we integrate across the other components, how do we integrate to make sure that my fellow component commanders, their missions are successful? That’s a big part of it is protecting that scheme of maneuver because the first and second island chain is a dangerous place to operate these days.
Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus:
One of the things that is a little bit different in Korea, but I think it’s worth noting. On the Korean peninsula, we fight from our foxhole. We’re not going anywhere. And every one of our bases is a main operating base. There is no such thing as a forward operating base in Korea. That and the density of the population on the peninsula actually offers an additional problem set and that is if you defend the base, but you have a large population immediately outside the base, you’re now risking civilian casualties that are not a part of that conversation.
Based on missile technology advancing over the years, we tend to think of everything as a precision strike, but there’s still a lot of capabilities that a adversary can throw against us that they’re happy to hit something inside of a football field. They’d be happy to hit something inside of a half a mile. Well, something that’s just outside of the base that maybe has hundreds of thousands of people living in it and a missile comes in, if you’re not defending, at least considering are you going to defend against that, how we traditionally think about it is, “I’ve got a wire around the outside of a base and I need to worry about my ability to defend my base.” I think that’s also something to at least consider as we have the conversation about main and forward operating bases and which one is more important.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Yes, sir. I like that fighting from a foxhole. Not an fun task. General Mastalir, in most cases, the Space Force is attended on other components installations. How do you ensure that your critical capabilities, whose impact on war fighting might not be readily apparent, are protected?
Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir:
Yeah, so my first reaction to that is, since elevating to a component, there are a lot of things that are readily apparent about what Guardians and what space capabilities bring to the fight. And the reason is is you have space Guardians that are sitting at the table alongside all the other components. So just like they’re going to hold me accountable to provide the combat effects from space that they need to be successful, I look to my fellow component commanders because, let’s be honest, we have forces on Kadena and Osan and Humphreys and Oahu and Maui and Kauai.
So you look across the AOR and those commanders responsible for those bases know what space brings to their fight because we’ve been integrating with them and we’ve been synchronizing OAIs, opportunities and activities and investments, as part of a campaign plan synchronized across all domains. So it is more apparent today within the combatant commands what space brings to the fight than it ever has been.
And that’s really not a function of leaving necessarily the air component because we’re still closely embedded with the air component. It’s a function of having that seat at the table and being able to discuss what the space war fighting contribution is to that particular campaign element. And then it becomes readily apparent where your forces are, where your capabilities are, what needs to be done to protect those. So it’s really not a problem since we’ve activated.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
That’s good to hear, sir. General Grynkewich, what innovations or lessons learned have been made in your command that could enable the Joint Force to better defend forward locations?
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich:
Yeah, it’s a great question. So I’d offer a couple of thoughts. First, as a paid political announcement for AFCENT, if you look at the tactical problem in the Pacific in a very shorthand description of it might be thousands of ballistic missiles that can rain down hate on the first island chain, forcing us to move to different places like the second island chain. And we can’t go and attack those ballistic missiles either for policy reasons or because they’re protected by an advanced IADs. If I take you into the CENTCOM AOR, it’s the exact same tactical problem, different scale perhaps, but the exact same tactical problem that we face in AFCENT. Our first island chain are the main operating bases that we actually have at forward locations along the Arabian Gulf. Many of you have probably served there over the years at Ali Al Salem or Al Dhafra or Al Udeid.
And our second island chain are the bases that we would use as contingency operating locations that are over, say, along the Red Sea or in the Mediterranean or over on the continent of Africa, if Trapper lets us use them. So the point is, if you flip east and west and change the sand into water, you have a very similar tactical problem. So across the board, as we think in AFCENT about how we execute things like agile combat employment, as we explore the tenants of mission command and as we develop our overall theater architecture for air defense, the lessons that we’re learning, the lessons that you all will learn if you come into AFCENT, will be directly exportable to the fight that we will all have to be involved in, should it come, with China. So I think it’s highly exportable across the globe. The biggest challenge for us, again, is the C2 of this entire thing.
So there’s lots of challenges with capability. Do we have enough? Is it mobile enough? Can we set it up quick enough, et cetera. But it’s a command and control of those capabilities and making sure that we know when a fighter’s going to intercept, we know when a Patriot’s going to engage. We know when we’re now going to hand off to a Base Air Defense Center so that they can engage with their capabilities, and how do you make those seamless transitions?
And every time there’s a seam, there’s an opportunity for us to mess it up. And so practicing and practicing and practicing several times a week doing exercises either up with bases in OIR, CJTF for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria where they come under UAS attack several times a month, or doing that at our main operating bases that AFCENT runs outside of OIR. It’s absolutely critical that we practice this and then export those TTPs and share them across air components around the world.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Gentlemen, any perspectives on this? Any TTPs on defending bases, both material and non-material, or TTP?
Maj. Gen. Derek France:
I think the one thing I would add that we have discovered more recently than not in USAFE is the need to train and to exercise and to practice those TTPs because the reality is that every base, whether it’s a MOB or a FOB, is different in some aspect or another, especially the forward operating bases. So we put assets in an eastern flank base that has U.S. air assets on the ground, NATO partner defense assets on the base, U.S. assets on the base, host nation assets on the base, SA3s, Patriots, et cetera, all trying to figure out how that layered defense looks like and who’s going to be the shooter and what authorities they’re going to operate under.
And to exercise that and really just have a live fly red air come in simulating a cruise missile or a type three, four, or five UAS is eye-opening to do that. And so we’ve gotten to the point where those locations, and you can’t just go one and it’s the same across the theater, that the locations are unique and specific and we’ve, I think, made some pretty good money as far as actually being ready to handle that scenario, at least as best we can, given the resources that are involved.
Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus:
Yeah, the only thing I would bring to that is when you’re not in actual engaged, named operation, and in the case of Korea, that is sovereign Korean airspace. So a threat flying towards a base that is my responsibility to defend, until it crosses my fence line, is not my authority to do anything. Until I become the JFAC and the WAMDC, all of the authorities that come with that, I have to do nothing more than say to the, in this case, our Korean partners, “Hey, do you see it?”
And if they don’t see it, then we pass the information to it and then they make decisions. And until it physically flies over my fence line in a vertical 90-degree vertical line, there’s nothing I can do about it because that is their sovereign airspace and it is their host nation responsibility to protect against it. And it happens every day in all of the AORs that we run into.
Korea just happens to be a little bit different where they had the drones that flew in December 26 into Seoul, out of North Korea. The first question was, “Hey, you’re the WAMDC, what are you doing about it?” And I said, “I have no authority to do anything about it.” And we worked very closely in partnership with our ROK counterparts and we provided options available to their National Command authority to make decisions over that. But that’s one of those kind of, when you look at a wiring diagram of what your authorities are, you always have to put a caveat next to it as to what authorities you have based on where you are in conflict, crisis or, in my case, it’s armistice on a day-to-day basis.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you, sir.
Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir:
So in terms of sharing TTPs and lessons learned across the various AORs, one of the advantages we have, there’s not a lot of advantages to being small, but one of them is that we can share information fairly easily. And, of course, I spent a year working CENTCOM and helping working with General Grynkewich at the time, helping build that component structure. And happy to hand that off to Colonel Chris Putman, who’s the commander there today, and has continued to just do awesome things with it.
And then, like you heard the CSO allude to earlier today, we’re looking at activating that next component. Well, we have the one on Penn, which is under my flag, Lieutenant Colonel Josh McCullion commanding there. And then we’re going to look at standing up another one in the European command, looking at specifically elevating into a Europe Africa type space component.
So the advantages is all these commanders, we all know each other, and we all served together for one to two decades-plus. And so being able to share information in terms of what works in one AOR and what might then translate to another AOR is pretty easy. But more to the point, and we just held the first one at Al Udeid, is these theater space conferences, and we bring in everybody from all the various components.
Like I said, Colonel Putman hosted the last one at Al Udeid. We brought in folks from the CSpOC at Vandenberg, from U.S. Space Command, from the IC, and really focusing on that theater space component and what it needs to bring to the fight, sharing those lessons learned, in terms of what did we set up to protect Reaper lines in this particular AOR. Now that Reapers are going to be flying in another AOR, will those same TTPs work? So being able to transfer that information very easily is one of the advantages that Space Force has, being the small numbers that we are.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Outstanding, sir. So General Pleus, what advancements does the Air Force need to make in its AAD architecture to enable it to defend more effectively against a peer competitor?
Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus:
I think the easiest number one topic, I think, would be the ability to share information. There’s not a theater of theater around in the entire world right now where we don’t run into some problems with our ability to share information from a AAMDC standpoint on. And I think that’s probably the first thing. I think opportunities to increase sensor sensitivity, if you will, the ability to find smaller targets, specifically in the UAS realm, is going to be critical as we move forward. I think options for the actual protection of a facility or a base, anything that we can do that can lower the cost curve, specifically so we’re not shooting million dollar missiles at $50 helicopters or quad copters.
Anything we can do to bring that cost curve down. And then I think the last thing that we need to consider is then how you take that architecture, whatever that sharing architecture is, and make sure that you’ve got the right command and control in place that goes across either national lines or host nation lines and the authorities that are imposed inside of them. The vignette that I gave a minute ago is exactly the conversation that you would want to have so that you don’t end up in that seam, which it’s, “I have no authority to do the job, yet they turn to me and say, ‘What are you going to do about it?'”
And if we can play through those, I think those are the opportunities. I think probably I’m talking mostly to industry at this point. The ideas of what are the innovative ideas you have out there on how we can start to help facilitate those types of things, multi-domain, cross-domain solutions. And when I say multi-domain, I’m really talking about truly multi-domain. Non-kinetic, kinetic options as well as how do we do that in a coalition environment? And every coalition is different.
And so if you’re talking about a NATO coalition, that’s going to be different than what you’ve got over in the UAE. It’s a different one that you’ve got between countries from the Space Force standpoint and different than what the ROK allows in Korea. So I think that’s where I would ask industry to put their smartest folks on because the problem set of defending not just a base, but frankly the United States of America and its soldiers, sailors, Airmen, Marine, and Guardians is our responsibility no matter where we are on the planet. And we need to make sure that we are prepared to do that prior to any cessation of hostilities.
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich:
Outstanding, sir. Now just so I’m understanding, I am a product of the Florida public school system, so I got the caveat. We’re talking information sharing. You’re basically talking overclassification perhaps?
Lt. Gen. Scott L. Pleus:
Well, it’s not necessarily over classification. It’s just classification in most cases. And then on the second part of that is I’ve got a system that it’s a U.S.-only system, and they’ve got a Korean system. And their system is no U.S. It’s Korea, no U.S. We always say, “It’s secret. No foreign.” Theirs is secret, no U.S. And those two systems can’t talk to each other today. And that, I think, is really… It doesn’t really matter what the information is. It’s just how do we share it across those domains.
Col. Stuart Pettis, USAF (Ret.):
Gotcha, sir. So, gentlemen, we’re wrapping up here. Thank you so much for your time here today. As, again, the product of the Florida public school system, I’m a little humbled being up here with these great leaders, who some I’ve known for many years. So thank you so much for your time here today, sharing your perspectives with our both industry and all of our Airmen and Guardian that are here today. So thank you so much.
Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich:
Thanks.