DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
PRESENTATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2005 AIR FORCE BUDGET OVERVIEW
JOINT STATEMENT OF: THE HONORABLE JAMES G. ROCHE, SECTRARY OF THE AIR FORCE GENERAL JOHN P. JUMPER,CHIEF OF STAFF,UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
MARCH 24, 2004
Mr. Chairman, Senator Inouye, and distinguished members of the committee, the Air Force has an unlimited horizon for air and space capabilities. Our Service was borne of innovation, and we remain focused on identifying and developing the concepts of operations, advanced technologies, and integrated operations required to provide the joint force with unprecedented capabilities and to remain the world’s dominant air and space force. Throughout our distinguished history, America’s Air Force has remained the world’s premier air and space power because of our professional airmen, our investment in warfighting technology, and our ability to integrate our people and systems together to produce decisive effects. These Air Force competencies are the foundation that will ensure we are prepared for the unknown threats of an uncertain future. They will ensure that our Combatant Commanders have the tools they need to maintain a broad and sustained advantage over any emerging adversaries.
In this strategic environment of the 21st century, and along with our sister services, our Air Force will continue to fulfill our obligation to protect America, deter aggression, assure our allies, and defeat our enemies. As we adapt the Air Force to the demands of this era, we remain committed to fulfilling our global commitments as part of the joint warfighting team. In partnership, and with the continuing assistance of the Congress, we will shape the force to meet the needs of this century, fight the Global War on Terrorism, and defend our nation.
The 2004 Posture Statement is our vision for the upcoming year and is the blueprint we will follow to sustain our air and space dominance in the future. We are America’s Air Force -- disciplined airmen, dominant in warfighting, decisive in conflict.
INTRODUCTION
In 2003, U.S. and coalition military operations produced unprecedented mission successes -- across the spectrum of conflict and around the globe. The joint warfighting team demonstrated combat capability never previously witnessed in the history of conflict. Integrating capabilities from air, land, sea, and space, the U.S. and coalition allies achieved considerable progress in the ongoing Global War on Terrorism. In our most recent engagements, our armed forces fulfilled our immediate obligations to defend America, deter aggression, assure our allies, and defeat our enemies.
The foundation of these achievements can be found in the Department of Defense’s (DoD) commitment to teamwork and excellence. Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) was a joint and coalition warfighting effort from planning to execution. Air, ground, maritime, and space forces worked together at the same time for the same objectives, not merely staying out of each other's way, but orchestrated to achieve wartime objectives. Our air and space forces achieved dominance throughout the entire theater, enabling maritime and ground forces to operate without fear of enemy air attack. Our airmen demonstrated the flexibility, speed, precision, and compelling effects of air and space power, successfully engaging the full range of enemy targets, from the regime’s leadership to fielded forces. When our ground and maritime components engaged the enemy, they were confident our airmen would be there -- either in advance of their attacks, or in support of their operations. And America’s Air Force was there, disciplined, dominant, and decisive.
These operational accomplishments illustrate the growing maturation of air and space power. Leveraging the expertise of our airmen, the technologies present in our 21st century force, and the strategies, concepts of operation, and organizations in use today, the U.S. Air Force continues to adapt to meet the demands of this new era, while pursuing the war on terrorism and defending the homeland.
On September 11, 2001, the dangers of the 21st century became apparent to the world. Today, the U.S. faces an array of asymmetric threats from terrorists and rogue states, including a threat that poses the gravest danger to our nation, the growing nexus of radicalism and technology. As we continue our work in Afghanistan and Iraq, we stand ready to respond to flashpoints around the world, prepared to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to unfriendly states and non-state entities.
We are adapting to new and enduring challenges. As we do, we are exploiting the inherent sources of strength that give us the advantages we enjoy today. It is a strategy predicated on the idea that, if we accurately assess our own advantages and strengths, we can invest in them to yield high rates of military return. This approach helps us create a portfolio of advantages allowing us to produce and continue to exploit our capabilities. Our goal is to create a capability mix consistent with operational concepts and effects-driven methodology, relevant to the joint character and increasingly asymmetric conduct of warfare.
Since 1945, when General Henry “Hap” Arnold and Dr. Theodore von Karman published Toward New Horizons, the Air Force has evolved to meet the changing needs of the nation -- with the sole objective of improving our ability to generate overwhelming and strategically compelling effects from air and now, space. It is our heritage to adapt and we will continue to do so. During this comparatively short history, we became the best air and space force in the world through our focus on the development of professional airmen, our investment in warfighting technology, and our ability to integrate people and systems to produce decisive joint warfighting effects.
The Air Force is making a conscious investment in education, training, and leader development to foster critical thinking, innovation, and encourage risk taking. We deliberately prepare our airmen -- officer, enlisted, and civilian -- with experience, assignments, and broadening that will allow them to succeed. When our airmen act in the combined or joint arena, whether as an Air Liaison Officer to a ground maneuver element, or as the space advisor to the Joint Force Commander (JFC), this focused professional development will guide their success.
We are also investing in technologies that will enable us to create a fully integrated force of intelligence capabilities, manned, unmanned and space assets that communicate at the machine-to-machine level, and real-time global command and control (C2) of joint, allied, and coalition forces. Collectively, these assets will enable compression of the targeting cycle and near-instantaneous global precision-strike.
As we cultivate new concepts of global engagement, we will move from analog to digital processes and adopt more agile, non-linear ways of integrating to achieve mission success. This change in thinking leads to capabilities including: networked communications; multi-mission platforms which fuse multi-spectral sensors; integrated global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); robust, all-weather weapons delivery with increased standoff; small smart weapons; remotely-piloted and unattended aircraft systems; advanced air operations centers; more secure position, navigation, and timing; and a new generation of satellites with more operationally responsive launch systems.
Investment in our core competencies is the foundation of our preparation for future threats. They ensure we have the tools we need to maintain strategic deterrence as well as a sustained advantage over our potential adversaries. Ultimately, they ensure we can deliver the dominant warfighting capability our nation needs.
Potential adversaries, however, continue to pursue capabilities that threaten the dominance we enjoy today. Double-digit surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs) are proliferating. China has purchased significant numbers of these advanced SAMs, and there is a risk of wider future proliferation to potential threat nations. Fifth-generation advanced aircraft with capabilities superior to our present fleet of frontline fighter/attack aircraft are in production. China has also purchased, and is developing, advanced fighter aircraft that are broadly comparable to the best of our current frontline fighters. Advanced cruise missile technology is expanding, and information technology is spreading. Access to satellite communications, imagery, and use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) signal for navigation are now available for anyone willing to purchase the necessary equipment or services. With this relentless technological progress and the potential parity of foreign nations, as well as their potential application in future threats, the mere maintenance of our aging aircraft and space systems will not suffice. Simply stated, our current fleet of legacy systems cannot always ensure air and space dominance in future engagements.
To counter these trends, we are pursuing a range of strategies that will guide our modernization and recapitalization efforts. We are using a capabilities-based planning and budgeting process, an integrated and systematic risk assessment system, a commitment to shorter acquisition cycle times, and improved program oversight. Our goal is to integrate our combat, information warfare, and support systems to create a portfolio of air and space advantages for the joint warfighter and the nation. Thus, we continue to advocate for program stability in our modernization and investment accounts. The principal mechanisms that facilitate this process are our Air Force Concepts of Operation (CONOPS). Through the CONOPS, we analyze problems we’ll be asked to solve for the JFCs, identify the capabilities our expeditionary forces need to accomplish their missions, and define the operational effects we expect to produce. Through this approach, we can make smarter decisions about future investment, articulate the link between systems and employment concepts, and identify our capability gaps and risks.
The priorities that emerge from the CONOPS will guide a reformed acquisition process that includes more active, continuous, and creative partnerships among the requirement, development, operational test, and industry communities who work side-by-side at the program level. In our science and technology planning, we are also working to demonstrate and integrate promising technologies quickly by providing an operational “pull” that conveys a clear vision of the capabilities we need for the future. We are applying this approach to our space systems as well. As the DoD’s Executive Agent for Space, we are producing innovative solutions for the most challenging national security problems. We have defined a series of priorities essential to delivering space-based capabilities to the joint warfighter and the Intelligence Community. Achieving mission success -- in operations and acquisition -- is our principal priority. This requires us to concentrate on designing and building quality into our systems. To achieve these exacting standards, we will concentrate on the technical aspects of our space programs early on -- relying on strong systems engineering design, discipline, and robust test programs. We also have many areas that require a sustained investment. We need to replace aging satellites, improve outmoded ground control stations, achieve space control capabilities to ensure freedom of action, sustain operationally responsive assured access to space, address bandwidth limitations, and focus space science and technology investment programs. This effort will require reinvigorating the space industrial base and funding smaller technology incubators to generate creative “over the horizon” ideas.
As we address the problem of aging systems through renewed investment, we will continue to find innovative means to keep current systems operationally effective. In OIF, the spirit of innovation flourished. We achieved a number of air and space power firsts: employment of the B-1 bomber’s synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indicator for ISR; incorporation of the Litening II targeting pod on the F-15, F-16, A-10, and the B-52; and use of a Global Hawk for strike coordination and reconnaissance while flown as a remotely piloted aircraft. With these integrated air and space capabilities, we were able to precisely find, fix, track, target, and rapidly engage our adversaries. These examples illustrate how we are approaching adaptation in the U.S. Air Force.
Ultimately, the success of our Air Force in accomplishing our mission and adapting to the exigencies of combat stems from the more than 700,000 active, guard, reserve, and civilian professionals who proudly call themselves “airmen.” In the past five years, they have displayed their competence and bravery in three major conflicts: the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. They are a formidable warfighting force, imbued with an expeditionary culture, and ready for the challenges of a dangerous world.
Poised to defend America’s interests, we continue to satisfy an unprecedented demand for air and space warfighting capabilities -- projecting American power globally while providing effective homeland defense. This is the U.S. Air Force in 2004 -- we foster ingenuity in the world’s most professional airmen, thrive on transitioning new technologies into joint warfighting systems, and drive relentlessly toward integration to realize the potential of our air and space capabilities. We are America’s Airmen -- confident in our capability to provide our nation with dominance in air and space. AIR AND SPACE DOMINANCE IN A NEW ENVIRONMENT
The U.S. Air Force ensures a flexible, responsive, and dominant force by providing a spectrum of operational capabilities that integrate with joint and coalition forces. To sustain and improve upon the dominance we enjoy today, the Air Force will remain engaged with the other services, our coalition partners, interagency teams, and the aerospace industry. As we do, we will incorporate the lessons learned from rigorous evaluation of past operations, detailed analyses of ongoing combat operations, and thoughtful prediction of the capabilities required of a future force.
The pace of operations over the past year enabled us to validate the function and structure of our Air and Space Expeditionary Forces (AEFs). Operations in 2003 demanded more capability from our AEFs than at any time since their inception in 1998. However, for the first time we relied exclusively on our AEFs to present the full range of our capabilities to the Combatant Commanders. Through our 10 AEFs, our AEF prime capabilities (space, national ISR, long range strike, nuclear, and other assets), and our AEF mobility assets, we demonstrated our ability to package forces, selecting the most appropriate combat ready forces from our Total Force, built and presented expeditionary units, and flowed them to the theaters of operation in a timely and logical sequence. We rapidly delivered them to the warfighters, while preserving a highly capable residual force to satisfy our global commitments.
More than three-fourths of our 359,300 active duty airmen are eligible to deploy and are assigned to an AEF. Through much of the past year, Total Force capabilities from 8 of the 10 AEFs were engaged simultaneously in worldwide operations. The remaining elements were returning from operations, training, or preparing to relieve those currently engaged. By the end of 2003, more than 26,000 airmen were deployed, supporting operations around the world.
In 2004, we will continue to use the AEFs to meet our global requirements while concurrently reconstituting the force. Our number one reconstitution priority is returning our forces to a sustainable AEF battle rhythm while conducting combat operations. Attaining this goal is about revitalizing capabilities. For most airmen, that will include a renewed emphasis on joint composite force training and preparation for rotations in the AEF. Through the AEF, the Air Force presents right-sized, highly trained expeditionary units to JFCs for employment across the spectrum of conflict.
Global War on Terrorism
The year 2003 marked another historic milestone for the U.S. and the Air Force in the Global War on Terrorism. Since September 11, 2001, air and space power has proven indispensable to securing American skies, defeating the Taliban, denying sanctuary to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and most recently, removing a brutal and oppressive dictator in Iraq. This Global War on Terrorism imposes on airmen a new steady state of accelerated operations and personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO), as well as a demand for unprecedented speed, agility, and innovation in defeating unconventional and unexpected threats, all while bringing stability and freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq. The Air Force and its airmen will meet these demands.
Operation NOBLE EAGLE
High above our nation, airmen protect our skies and cities through air defense operations known as Operation NOBLE EAGLE (ONE). The Total Force team, comprised of active duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve airmen, conducts airborne early warning, air refueling, and combat air patrol operations in order to protect sensitive sites, metropolitan areas, and critical infrastructure.
This constant “top cover” demands significant Air Force assets, thus raising the baseline of requirements above the pre-September 11 tempo. Since 2001, this baseline has meant over 34,000 fighter, tanker, and airborne early warning sorties were added to Air Force requirements. This year the Air Force scrambled nearly 1,000 aircraft, responding to 800 incidents. Eight active duty, eight Air Force Reserve, and 18 Air National Guard units provided 1,300 tanker sorties offloading more than 32 million pounds of fuel for these missions. Last year, over 2,400 airmen stood vigilant at air defense sector operations centers and other radar sites. Additionally, in 2003, we continued to institutionalize changes to our homeland defense mission through joint, combined, and interagency training and planning. Participating in the initial validation exercise DETERMINED PROMISE-03, the Air Force illustrated how its air defense, air mobility, and command and control capabilities work seamlessly with other agencies supporting NORTHCOM and Department of Homeland Security objectives. The integration and readiness that comes from careful planning and rigorous training will ensure the continued security of America’s skies.
Operation ENDURING FREEDOM – Afghanistan
Operation ENDURING FREEDOM - Afghanistan (OEF) is ongoing. Remnants of Taliban forces continue to attack U.S., NATO, coalition troops, humanitarian aid workers, and others involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. To defeat this threat, aid coalition stability, and support operations, the Air Force has maintained a presence of nearly 24,000 airmen in and around the region. Having already flown more than 90,000 sorties (over 72 percent of all OEF missions flown), the Air Force team of active, Guard, and Reserve airmen continue to perform ISR, close air support (CAS), aerial refueling, and tactical and strategic airlift. While fully engaged in ONE and OIF, the men and women of the Air Force provided full spectrum air and space support, orchestrating assets from every service and ten different nations. Of these, Air Force strike aircraft flying from nine bases flew more than two-thirds of the combat missions, dropped more than 66,000 munitions (9,650 tons) and damaged or destroyed approximately three-quarters of planned targets. In 2003 alone, Air Force assets provided more than 3,000 sorties of on-call CAS, responding to calls from joint and/or coalition forces on the ground.
Last year, the Air Force brought personnel and materiel into this distant, land-locked nation via 7,410 sorties. Over 4,100 passengers and 487 tons of cargo were moved by airmen operating at various Tanker Airlift Control Elements in and around Afghanistan. To support these airlift and combat sorties and the numerous air assets of the coalition with aerial refueling, the Air Force deployed over 50 tankers. In their primary role, these late 1950s-era and early 1960s-era KC-135 tankers flew more than 3,900 refueling missions. In their secondary airlift role, they delivered 3,620 passengers and 405 tons of cargo. Without versatile tankers, our armed forces would need greater access to foreign bases, more aircraft to accomplish the same mission, more airlift assets, and generate more sorties to maintain the required duration on-station.
Operations in Afghanistan also highlight U.S. and coalition reliance on U.S. space capabilities. This spanned accurate global weather, precise navigation, communications, as well as persistent worldwide missile warning and surveillance. For example, OEF relied on precision navigation provided by the Air Force’s GPS constellation, over-the-horizon satellite communications (SATCOM), and timely observations of weather, geodesy, and enemy activity. To accomplish this, space professionals performed thousands of precise satellite contacts and hundreds of station keeping adjustments to provide transparent space capability to the warfighter. These vital space capabilities and joint enablers directly leveraged our ability to pursue U.S. objectives in OEF.
Operations NORTHERN WATCH and SOUTHERN WATCH
During the past 12 years, the Air Force flew over 391,000 sorties enforcing the northern and southern no-fly zones over Iraq. With the preponderance of forces, the Air Force, along with the Navy and Marine Corps, worked alongside the Royal Air Force in Operations NORTHERN WATCH (ONW) and SOUTHERN WATCH (OSW). Manning radar outposts and established C2 centers, conducting ISR along Iraq’s borders, responding to almost daily acts of Iraqi aggression, and maintaining the required airlift and air refueling missions taxed Air Force assets since the end of Operation DESERT STORM. Yet, these successful air operations had three main effects: they halted air attacks on the ethnic minority populations under the no-fly zones; they deterred a repeat of Iraqi aggression against its neighbors; and they leveraged enforcement of United Nations Security Council Resolutions. Throughout this period, our airmen honed their warfighting skills, gained familiarity with the region, and were able to establish favorable conditions for OIF. For more than a decade, American airmen rose to one of our nation’s most important challenges, containing Saddam Hussein.
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM
On 19 March 2003, our airmen, alongside fellow soldiers, sailors, marines and coalition teammates, were called upon to remove the dangerous and oppressive Iraqi regime -- this date marked the end of ONW/OSW and the beginning of OIF. OIF crystallized the meaning of jointness and the synergies of combined arms and persistent battlefield awareness. In the first minutes of OIF, airmen of our Combat Air Forces (USAF, USN, USMC, and coalition) were flying over Baghdad. As major land forces crossed the line of departure, Air Force assets pounded Iraqi command and control facilities and key leadership targets, decapitating the decision-makers from their fielded forces. Remaining Iraqi leaders operated with outdated information about ground forces that had already moved miles beyond their reach. As the land component raced toward Baghdad, coalition strike aircraft were simultaneously attacking Iraqi fielded forces, communications and command and control centers, surface-to-surface missile launch sites, and were supporting special operations forces, and ensuring complete air and space dominance in the skies over Iraq. Due to these actions and those during the previous 12 years, none of the 19 Iraqi missile launches were successful in disrupting coalition operations, and not a single Iraqi combat sortie flew during this conflict. Twenty-one days after major combat operations began, the first U.S. land forces reached Baghdad. Five days later, the last major city in Iraq capitulated.
The Air Force provided over 7,000 CAS sorties to aid land forces in the quickest ground force movement in history. Lieutenant General William S. Wallace, Commander of the U.S. Army V Corps said, “none of my commanders complained about the availability, responsiveness, or effectiveness of CAS -- it was unprecedented!” As Iraqi forces attempted to stand against the integrated air and ground offensive, they found a joint and coalition team that was better equipped, better trained, and better led than ever brought to the field of battle.
Training, leadership, and innovation coupled with the Air Force’s recent investment in air mobility allowed U.S. forces to open a second major front in the Iraqi campaign. Constrained from access by land, Air Force C-17s airdropped over 1,000 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade into northern Iraq. This successful mission opened Bashur airfield and ensured U.S. forces could be resupplied.
Before 2003, the Air Force invested heavily in the lessons learned from OEF. Shortening the “kill chain,” or the time it took to find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess was one of our top priorities. This investment was worthwhile, as 156 time-sensitive targets were engaged within minutes, most with precision weapons. The flexibility of centralized control and decentralized execution of air and space power enabled direct support to JFC objectives throughout Iraq. Coalition and joint airpower shaped the battlefield ahead of ground forces, provided intelligence and security to the flanks and rear of the rapidly advancing coalition, and served as a force multiplier for Special Operations forces. This synergy between Special Operations and the Air Force allowed small specialized teams to have a major effect throughout the northern and western portions of Iraq by magnifying their inherent lethality, guaranteeing rapid tactical mobility, reducing their footprint through aerial resupply, and providing them the advantage of “knowing what was over the next hill” through air and space-borne ISR.
The Air Force’s C2ISR assets enabled the joint force in Afghanistan as well. This invaluable fleet includes the RC-135 Rivet Joint, E-8 JSTARS, and the E-3 AWACS. This “Iron Triad” of intelligence sensors and C2 capabilities illustrates the Air Force vision of horizontal integration in terms of persistent battlefield awareness. Combined with the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle and Predator remotely piloted aircraft, spaced-based systems, U-2, and Compass Call, these invaluable system provided all-weather, multi-source intelligence to commanders from all services throughout the area of responsibility.
OIF was the Predator’s first “networked” operation. Four simultaneous Predator orbits were flown over Iraq and an additional orbit operated over Afghanistan, with three of those orbits controlled via remote operations in the U.S. This combined reachback enabled dynamic support to numerous OIF missions. Predator also contributed to our operational flexibility, accomplishing hunter-killer missions, tactical ballistic missile search, force protection, focused intelligence collection, air strike control, and special operations support. A Hellfire equipped Predator also conducted numerous precision strikes against Iraqi targets, and flew armed escort missions with U.S. Army helicopters.
Space power provided precise, all-weather navigation, global communications, missile warning, and surveillance. The ability to adapt to adverse weather conditions, including sandstorms, allowed air, land, and maritime forces to confound the Iraqi military and denied safe haven anywhere in their own country. As the Iraqis attempted to use ground-based GPS jammers, Air Force strike assets destroyed them, in some cases, using the very munitions the jammers attempted to defeat. As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted, this new era was illustrated by the coalition’s “unprecedented combination of power, precision, speed, and flexibility.” During the height of OIF, the Air Force deployed 54,955 airmen. Ambassador Paul Bremer, Chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, pronounced, “In roughly three weeks [we] liberated a country larger than Germany and Italy combined, and [we] did so with forces smaller than the Army of the Potomac.” Led by the finest officers and non-commissioned officers, our airmen flew more than 79,000 sorties since March of 2003. Ten thousand strike sorties dropped 37,065 munitions. The coalition flew over 55,000 airlift sorties moved 469,093 passengers and more than 165,060 tons of cargo. In addition, over 10,000 aerial refueling missions supported aircraft from all services, and 1,600 ISR missions provided battlespace awareness regardless of uniform, service, or coalition nationality. This was a blistering campaign that demanded a joint and combined effort to maximize effects in the battlespace.
Today, Air Force airmen continue to contribute to the joint and coalition team engaged in Iraq. At the end of the year, 6,723 airmen from the active duty, Reserve, and Air National Guard conducted a wide range of missions from locations overseas, flying approximately 150 sorties per day including CAS for ground forces tracking down regime loyalists, foreign fighters, and terrorists. On a daily basis, U-2 and RC-135 aircraft flew ISR sorties monitoring the porous borders of Iraq and providing situational awareness and route planning for Army patrols in stability and support operations. Providing everything from base security for 27 new bases opened by the coalition to the lifeline of supplies that air mobility and air refueling assets bring to all joint forces, Air Force airmen are committed to the successful accomplishment of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
