General Ralph E. "Ed" Eberhart
Commander-in-Chief, NORAD and U.S. Space Command,
and Commander, Air Force Space Command
AFA National Symposium--Los Angeles
November 17, 2000
It is great to be here and it is great to be back,
returning as a participant. It is always sort of unnerving when you are sitting
there in the front row trying to go through your speech and General Shaud gets
up and says what you are going to talk about. I’ve been doing a little
scrambling here to try to follow his lead. I’ve been to California now about
four times in the last two or three months for speeches. Therefore I apologize
to some of you who may have been to all four of those wonderful events. First of
all, you had to listen to me. And also you are going to hear pretty much the
same speech. But, if your memory is like mine, good but short, it shouldn’t
bother you at all.
I studied a lot about California and several quotes come
to mind today. One is that Frank Lloyd Wright once said that if you take the
country and stand it on its side and shake, everything loose shows up in Los
Angeles. Terry Williams said that Los Angeles is like a circus without a tent.
Dorothy Parker said it was 72 suburbs looking for a city. The quote that comes
to mind and brought us here, but more importantly brought those air pioneers in
the 1920s and the space pioneers in the 1950s and since, is what Emerson said.
My friends from Colorado should note, Emerson said this, not me. He said the
magnificent thing about California is its days. It has good days and more of
them any other place. That really is what brought those air power pioneers and
space power pioneers here.
As you look around at space and missile center, at the
Lester Range, at Beale and Edwards and a whole host of other bases that
regrettably are no longer with us, they certainly have benefitted from the men
and women of this great state, the support that they have been provided. Nowhere
is that military industrial complex more vibrant than here in California and
here in Los Angeles. If you look around we are reminded of how fortunate we are
to have that relationship, that cooperation, that common purpose. The
organization that provides the oil and fine tunes that is our own Air Force
Association. It obviously pre-dates our Air Force, formed before our Air Force
became a separate service. And although they don’t brag about it, I will.
Despite the age and size of our sister services and the wonderful associations
they have, we far outnumber those associations. Thanks once again to our
national leadership and in particular today the Schrieber Chapter for hosting
us.
I would like to spend a couple minutes and tell you three
things that are on each of the command’s plates there in Colorado Springs. If
I don’t mention something, it is not that it is not important. It is that we
have it under control. I’d be glad to discuss that during question and answer
period. First, North American Air Defense Command, dating back to 1958. The
first issue that we worry about day in and day out is cruise missile defense. I
can tell you that as a commander in chief, I worry more about a cruise missile
defense attack on this nation, not today and not tomorrow, but I would say in
the ensuing decade. We just have to come to grips with what the threat is and
how we counter that threat. That will be increasingly important.
Why is that so important? Unlike an ICBM, unlike a
ballistic missile, we don’t know what axis of attack that cruise missile might
come from anywhere around this great nation. Secondly, the proliferation of that
technology is much more prominent than ballistic missiles. Third, they don’t
leave a return address like a ballistic missile does. Day in and day out we are
not looking for those as we are looking for ballistic missiles.
Secondly at NORAD, we are concerned about bringing our
command and control system into the 1980s or 1990s. Ideally, we want to bring it
into the 21st century. If you go into Cheyenne Mountain today, you
are spying 25 plus computer systems and almost the same number of computer
languages and over 2,000,000 lines of code. When you talk about reliability,
maintainability, affordability, and you talk about inter-operability, it is a
real challenge and we’ve just got to challenge this and solve our problem. As
you know we’ve just invested a lot of money along those lines to hopefully set
that right.
Finally, in NORAD, we struggle with relevance. We struggle
with the unfair accusation that we are a Cold War relic and that we have no
relevance in this New World Order--Old War Disorder in many of our views. I
argue that is exactly the wrong site picture. Air sovereignty is important and
will remain important in a nation whose Armed Forces have to be able to
guarantee that regardless of threat.
Back to the cruise missile threat that we foresee in the
future, I think it will become even more relevant in the years ahead. And we
have adapted to this New World Order. There are 20 airplanes on alert out there
today in both of these nations – a total of 20. Compare that to the 50s and
60s when there were more orange flight suits than green flight suits out there.
More airplanes at Air Defense Command than at Tactical Air Command.
Let’s move to U.S. Space Command. Two new missions that
we are struggling with – alluded to by General Shaud – computer network
defense and computer network attack. The unified command plan, the UCP, assigned
us computer network defense 1 October of 1999 and computer network attack 1
October of 2000. One of the first questions I get about those two missions is,
why U.S. Space Command? I wish Dick Meyers were here this morning because my
answer usually is, my predecessor either one, missed the meeting or two, wasn’t
paying attention (laughter). Therefore, we have the mission.
It is not a natural marriage. I don’t pretend to tell
you that it is. But I can’t think of a better marriage out there for those two
very important and rapidly evolving missions. I don’t think it should go to an
agency. When you look at the other CINCs, I think our people are best postured
to take on those missions. Fought with technical, policy and legal issues. Of
the two, the one that I think is most important in the near term, that really
could cost us on the battlefield in terms of time and therefore in terms of
lives, is computer network defense. We are not there yet. I am not sure we will
ever be there because this will continually evolve and change, but I can tell
you, we are a heck of a lot better off than we were two years ago or even one
year ago. But we have to properly man and resource this mission.
When we talk about computer network defense and computer
network attack, I remind you, it is just that. It is not computer network
exploitation – that remains the purview of the intelligence community. It is
not information operations, because that encompasses tactical deception,
electronic warfare and on and on and on. The missions we have are defense and
attack and not for the nation at this time, but for the Defense infrastructure.
We are working hard to do that.
The other issue that we struggle with is MILSATCOM. We are
sort of the MILSATCOM referee 911 number, the CINCs’ representatives in terms
of MILSATCOM. There are a lot of different issues out there.
First of all, what is the right balance between fiber and
satcom? There are some who would say, we don’t need much satcom because we’ve
got all that satcom. Look at the band width. Look at how cheap it will be. You
know, we know, that we will be called to go places where there will be no fiber.
Or, as I did in 1990, when we went into one of our host countries. There was
fiber there, but they wouldn’t let us use it. We have to have some satcom.
Then, what is the right balance between protected, hard,
redundant and commercial and in between, that is, secure, between MILSTAR, wide
band and commercial. I am not sure. We need to work our way through this
problem. I can tell you that in Kosovo, about 60 percent was commercial that we
used day in and day out. What is probably more telling is that we deployed 10
percent of the people to Kosovo when compared to Desert Storm. That 10 percent,
that population used two and a half times the band width that we used in Desert
Storm.
There are some who say, curb the appetite. Get used to
less band width. That is not the way we fight wars and that is not the way we
should fight wars. We need that situational awareness. We need that command and
control capability. We must provide it to our people.
Let’s move to Air Force Space Command. Space launch.
Many of you are directly involved in that challenge. As we evolve, migrate from
our legacy systems to the EELV and beyond, the fact of the matter is that we
collectively took our eye off the ball and we had some failures we should not
have had a little over a year ago. We have once again focused, we have the right
people working the problem, we have the right processes in place and as my
daughter would say, go figure, we’ve been successful. We must not make that
mistake again. We need to proceed slowly as we change the processes with the
EELV to make sure we truly understand. We cannot afford to lose those systems
and payloads. I can tell you that Air Force Materiel Command, our acquisition
community, led by Larry Delaney, and Air Force Space Command, along with our
industrial partners, are working this hard.
ICBMs. The modernization of our ICBM program. It is on
track right now for the Minuteman III. We know where we are going. We are on
schedule, pretty much on cost, despite some help from the Congress, until 2020.
The path after 2020 is not all that clear right now as we complete the follow-on
ICBM study. What is it going to look like? I am not sure. My intuition tells me
that it will be a Minuteman IV. Whether that is a new missile we drop in the
current silos or whether that is a continued modification, replace the guts of
the III, I am not sure. But I don’t envision a new basing mode. I can’t
imagine the environmental impact statement that will go along with that. I think
what we have is what we have. I’d like to say it will all go away. As a world
citizen, American citizen, that would be my vote. But I don’t see that in my
lifetime nor the lifetime of our children. One thing is very clear to me. If
there is one nuclear weapon left on the face of the earth, I know who I want to
have it.
The other issue that we’ve been working hard at Air
Force Space Command – in fact, at all the commands, as the chief talked about,
is the space commission. Once again, I’ll tell you that I was wrong about
something in retrospect. If somebody were to ask me to vote last February or
March, do you want a space commission, I would have said no. It is kind of like
when they ask you, do you want to go to the dentist? We all know usually when we
go and get back, we are better off. I am convinced that even if the space
commission does not render a report, we will be better off because of the space
commission. The introspection we have done as a service, as the other services
have done, across the Department of Defense, the CINCs, and particularly in
Colorado Springs in all three of the commands. I think it has helped us refocus,
to chart the path ahead and to truly realize what our destiny is in terms of an
aerospace force. I think that is good.
Overall, as I look at all three commands, the things that
concern us, first, missile warning. Job one day in and day out. Whether you are
in Air Force Space Command, U.S. Space Command or NORAD, we’ve got to keep the
SBIRS program on track, barring any technical surprises. My view is, not only
SBIRS High, but SBIRS Low. We ought not be so short-sighted that we say, SBIRS
Low will only do the NMD mission. We ought to do cost-benefit analysis and then
decide whether or not we are going to make that investment for that capability
in that constellation.
One of the things that we worry about, especially in U.S.
Space Command and Air Force Space Command, is this continuing evolution of
integration. After Desert Storm, the clamor and justifiably so was, we’ve got
to figure out a way to better integrate, to better leverage our space assets to
support air, but not only air, but also as the chief talked about, maritime and
land warfighters. I would offer to you that we ought to get a B plus on that, if
not an A minus on that this last decade. We have worked that hard. Systems that
weren’t designed to do that, but good people working together across our
government and with industry have figured out ways to integrate those
capabilities and I think it has been a real success story. Just look at the
difference in the report card after Kosovo as compared to Desert Storm. I think
we did exactly the right thing. We took that integration throttle and if we didn’t
have it in after burner, we certainly had it in the last decade. The throttle
that we had back in the mid-range is space superiority, space dominance, the
counter space throttle, it is time now to push that throttle up. You don’t
pull back the integration throttle. Once again, people have learned to rely on
that integration, those capabilities and we have to look for ways to continue to
do that, but we have to push up the space superiority throttle.
Why? First of all, because of integration, people rely on
those capabilities so much. They don’t want to leave home without them. They
certainly don’t want to wage war without them. We have to be able to protect
them. Others are realizing how important they are to us so they want to attack
them. They also want to develop their own capabilities. We have to be able to
deny them those capabilities. What’s more, as General Shaud alluded to, the
American people, whether they know it or not, rely more and more on things that
move through or come from space. The analogy that I use is that the first ships
that set sail weren’t navies, they were explorers and traders. And why did
navies go to sea? To protect them. We have got to be able to protect our
commercial interests in space.
Finally, and the issue that we worry about more than
anything else, once again, the chief alluded to, and that is our men and women,
those magnificent men and women. Recruiting and retaining the right people for
the Air Force and for all of our Armed Forces. It is all for naught if you don’t
have the right people. You can have the biggest budget in the world, the best
equipment, the best facilities – which we certainly don’t have at this time
– but it is all for naught unless you have the right people. We have to make
sure that they are properly rewarded. They are not going to get rich. They don’t
expect to get rich in our Air Force, but they ought not suffer.
We believe that we must get them their education and
training, the responsibility and authority, the things they do today that we
used to do with officers, that pay scale is an embarrassment. As the chief said,
you can have all the bonuses in the world, but you don’t take those bonuses,
special pays to the retirement bank. They don’t go with you. You leave those
at the personnel office when you leave. In fact, Ronald Reagan, to paraphrase
him in his first inaugural address said, no arsenal or any weapon in arsenal is
as formidable as the will and morale courage of free men and women. That says
how important our men and women are.
In closing, I think it is important to reflect on how far
we’ve come. This month, in 1950, this country was engaged in the Korean War.
Seventy B-29s attacked a bridge complex in Korea and dropped 600 tons of weapons
on that bridge complex and did not drop one span. Compare that with what this
aerospace force did in Kosovo. When one B-2 first pass dropped the bridge. As
the chief said, no one comes close.
Q: Re-capitalizing all the COMNAV surveillance
threat and warning, weather and launch vehicle systems in the next 10 years is a
monumental undertaking. What are your chief concerns as this begins? Where do
you start?
General Eberhart: You can start two places. One is
you have to have the right planning. You have lay out those programs. My point
is the immediate answer shouldn’t just be, more money. We need to fully
understand this and be good stewards of the taxpayers dollars and work this not
just independently as an Air Force, but work it with our commercial partners.
Again, it does come down to money. That is one of my responses when I talk to
the space commission and they are frustrated as all of us in this room are
frustrated about our pace in terms of supporting, moving ahead, jumping ahead in
space. I think it is a factor of two things. It is policy at the national level
but also it is money. As they said in 1992, it is the economy, stupid. Today I
say it is the budget stupid. Then the answer is, why don’t you go take a
couple of divisions or a couple of carriers or the F-22 or the additional C-17s
and spend that on space. I can tell you in good faith, I can’t advocate any of
that, as tempted as I might be some times. I don’t know whose pocket to pick
for more money.
We need more money across the board and therefore space
will get its fair share and in my view, more than its fair share because we need
a space build up like the strategic build up this country went through
particularly from about 1962 to 1972.
Q: You mentioned SBIRS. Do you see the possibility
of a multi-mission space constellation in the future?
General Eberhart: My personal view is that is the
only way to go. If you are going to put the bus up there, you want to fill every
seat on the bus. You don’t want to leave the station with empty seats. We
ought to do as much as we possibly can with everything on orbit.
Q: Is there support for space-based radar? If so,
when do you really need this capability?
General Eberhart: I don’t think there is any
doubt in anyone’s mind who followed this issue this past year that there is
strong support for this. We voted with money and that shows pretty strong
support. When the program was at risk, I had no problem getting other commanders
in chief to join me in supporting the program and talking about the importance
of the program. In my view, there were a couple things that weren’t understood
or didn’t want to be understood on this issue. One is that we heard the
counter, we can’t afford this program. We can’t afford a constellation of 24
SBIRS Low. That is a notional constellation in my mind. First we have go to
figure out what this will or will not do for us. Then once we appreciate that, a
concept demo, then we make a decision on whether or not we can afford it. We can’t
make that decision until we truly understand value added.
Secondly, you already have all this information and you
can’t process it and disseminate it. My view is that is just a question of
priorities. If this information is important enough, we’ll figure out how to
process and disseminate. Regrettably, we didn’t get the support that we’d
like on the Hill from other areas in terms of strong supporters who stand up and
are bullish for space programs. Hopefully, we’ll go back. We’ll answer the
Congress’ concerns about what the mission needs, what are the operational
requirements, what do we really hope to do in terms of CONOPS. That is fair. We
will answer those questions. Then hopefully everybody will realize that we need
to press ahead with this demonstration. Then we decide when and if we field it.
When do we need it? We need it today.
Q: What is the rationale for the space maneuver
vehicle?
General Eberhart: The rationale is truly the way of
the future. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when. Obviously it
is one of these areas where requirements are not well set out right now. If the
requirements aren’t well set out, the CONOPS are not well set out either. My
view is there weren’t a lot of requirements and a lot of CONOPS in 1903 and
then in 1907 for the airplane. But the airplane came along and that technology
came along and we figured out how to use it, to some people’s chagrin. My view
is that it is the way of the future, we need to invest in it. If we get more
money for Defense and for space, we need to up the ante in both those areas.
Q: How do we generate support for weaponizing
space? Adding a nail to our war fighters’ quiver is something the public
should support to protect that infrastructure?
General Eberhart: We’ve come a long way in this
area over the last eight years. In the early 1990s, if you said weaponizing
space or if you said even space control, you’d probably get a phone call from
somebody chastising you for saying that in public. Now at least we can talk
about it. It is in fact a mission under the UCP to U.S. Space Command.
Therefore, we have to go through the intellectual rigor, the science and
technology, the research and development to make sure we can do this if this
nation needs us to put weapons in space. I would like, once again, as a world
citizen, never to have to do that. That some how we have agreements where that
wouldn’t be necessary. For one, we could protect our ability to operate in
space and preclude others from operating in space without putting weapons in
space. Frankly, I don’t think that is practical. I think over time there will
be weapons in space. There is a lot of misconceptions out there on what
international law says and doesn’t say in this area. First of all,
international law says you cannot put weapons or build fortifications on a
celestial body. You cannot go to the moon and build a fort. It also says that
you cannot put weapons of mass destruction in space. There is a lot of
misconceptions out there.
Finally, everybody agrees international law is something
you have to do to protect your men and women and obviously you have the right to
do that.
Q: Break out more fully why part of the information
operation capability now resides in ACC and part of it resides in Space Command.
General Eberhart: This isn’t a decision that the
chief and the secretary with the advice of their leadership teams took lightly.
In fact, it was a topic of discussion in at least two if not three Corona
sessions. Because there are many different ways we can go here. We can take this
capability and move it to Air Force Space Command and then try to move Air Force
Space Command in the direction of a space and information command. Or we could
leave it exactly where it was because the men and women of air intelligence
agency have performed superbly over the last decade with this mission and really
led the way. We believe that organization structure is important and so it was
appropriate to get out of an agency and put it in a warfighting command that
could own it, a numbered Air Force. Then the question was, should that be 14th
Air Force up here at Vandenberg or one of ACC’s. At that time, I was the Air
Combat Command commander and voted for ACC. No. (laughter). Just seeing if you
are paying attention.
We truly believe that the right line up is with these
information operations activities and computer activities that the right
integration to do is with air breathing assets with air breathing assets. In a
command that is used to chopping forces, through Joint Forces Command to
overseas commands to support the warfighter. I believe sincerely, not just as
Air Force Space Command working for the chief, but as a CINC, that is the right
thing to do at this time. One day, maybe the right thing is to align it with Air
Force Space Command, a component of U.S. Space Command, 14th Air
Force to U.S. Space Command, but we think there is better leverage, better
synergy today to aligning it in Air Combat Command with other information
operations ISR assets.
Q: What can we do to improve the team work and
integration between blue suit operators and blue suit engineers to best tap the
talent from Air Force Space Command and Air Force Materiel Command?
General Eberhart: There is no doubt in my mind that
we can do this better, but I wouldn’t stand here and apologize for the way we
are doing it today. I think a lot of the things we’ve moved to over the last
five to seven years in terms of taking these engineers and putting them in
operational assignments right up front, to make sure that our men and women who
we label as operators first and foremost understand the contributions of these
engineers, that they are just as dedicated, just as selfless in their service to
this nation. I also think that as the chief alluded to, when you look at
developing aerospace leaders, DAL, as you look at that over time, and as we
continue to evolve our definition of what is an operator, who is an operator?
What are their contributions? What role do they play? I think all those things
will be key as we work with not only the engineers in AFMC, but the engineers in
Air Force Space Command and elsewhere.
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