General Gamble: Let me, first of all, bring you greetings from the airmen of the Pacific and express our appreciation for what this organization does. I am particularly appreciative when you all—I am talking industry as well as John Politi-make your trip out. When any of you come out and sit down and talk to us and make that long swing through West Pac and sometimes even farther, and take the time to go out and see what airmen are doing at the other end of the world, they really appreciate it. They appreciate the opportunity they get to talk to you.  

It is important to us for you to get that first-hand feeling of what is going on out there and then bring it back here. There are many of you out in the audience who have been there and to every one of you, I would invite you back and that is an important link that you all make with us. I thank you for it.

I am always asked this one question: What is the future going to hold in the Pacific for the U.S. Air Force in the next millennium? My answer is quick and that is, “I am going to be dead for about 97 percent of the next millennium and I don’t have a clue.” [Laughter] But there is a little bit of that millennium that I am interested in and I am willing to talk about that, and so General Shaud asked me to talk about that with you today.

I would ask you to keep in mind—from three great commanders—you’ve just seen some great briefings about the direction of the Air Force, both from a specific and a concept of operations point of view, about the things that we are going to do and I think you’ll notice a thread of continuity in there, and that continuity is going to spread to the Pacific, just as it has been forged in fire in Europe and the Balkans. 

I would ask you to think about the application of some of what you’ve seen from those last three briefings into what I am going to talk to you a little bit about today, because I am not going to talk specifically about those things. What I am going to talk about is: What do we see in the future for the application of aerospace power across the Pacific?  

The difficulty with that question is that it is the politics and the dollars that drive the Pacific.  You can’t really ask a security-related question without talking about politics and dollars and then the ripple effect that is going to have on forces. What I am going to plan on doing is to talk a little bit about those subjects, but not in a predictive way. Rather, in the way that we are trying to analyze them ourselves. That is, what is going on in the realm of politics and what is going on in the realm of economics that might have an effect on the location of forces across the Pacific and then back that into aerospace forces specifically. Because, that is exactly how you have to look at the future in that area. That is an interesting look. It is what I call a waltz around the Pacific. I have got the map up there on the wall just for reference.

Let me hit the big one right off the bat. First thing everybody asks: What about China? We might as well address that one face-on. We have an opportunity right now to get it exactly right or exactly wrong with China. I don’t know what the answer is going to be. I don’t know where that is going to go. I know it is going to have a big impact on the U.S. Air Force. If you look at China’s history, China fought with the Russians across the Amur River. They moved up the Red River Valley in Vietnam and fought the North Vietnamese and then backed out when they thought they were done with them. Of course, we had the Taiwan exchange in the 1950s and the 1960s. China is interested in the Spratley Islands. China has fought a border skirmish in the early 1960s with India. So you have Chinese security interests all through that whole region. In fact, they are a common denominator as you look through that whole area and swing around from Northwest Asia all the way to Southeast Asia. It is China, China, China. That is what is on a lot of people’s minds.

On the other hand, we are a big trading partner with China. They have a vision for themselves in the Pacific that is an economic vision, first and foremost. That could be a great opportunity for the U.S. They need markets. They’re interested in co-opting nations around that big swing around the continent right there to their own advantage. They can’t do it both. They can’t fight a major war. They can’t develop a huge offensive formidable power to come out of their borders and try and fight their way across with ancient enemies that they’ve been fighting for hundreds of years. They simply can’t afford to do it. They watched the Russians go down the tubes in an attempt to do it themselves. They’ve got a long view in mind.

So, what is it we are going to do? We are on a knife-edge. I don’t know. But I do know this: We can get it right. Politically, we have a lot of opportunity with China. We have a very good potential for important stability across the Pacific. Or, we can get it wrong and we can hand our grandchildren another Cold War that will go on for 50 or 70 years. We are right at the cusp of that right now and that will have a ripple effect on what we do—a significant effect on what we do with U.S. military forces because that is a big area. If we have to go out there in large numbers, those forces are going to have to come from someplace.

With China in mind, though, they are not the only player out there. There are a lot of other players. Let me start with Russia. Great people. Wonderful people. Proud people. But Russia is a basket-case right now. They are not even on the radar scope. Only a few years ago they occupied all our time. As you and I were talking earlier, the Cold War was a piece of cake. We sat on alert for 15 days a month. Everything was stable. One year you’d go to Ramstein for a month and exercise. The next year you’d go to exercise in Northern Italy, drink some fine wine. That was the Cold War and it was great. There was no op tempo problem and everybody was happy. The Cold War was a piece of cake. Now, what have we gone back to? We are just now seeing the end of World War II, finally, with all the political ramifications that have played themselves out. When we pulled that cover off, what we found underneath was World War I still going on.

But it is not with the Russians anymore. The Russians are kind of out-of-it. They are trying to get cash and they are trying to sell some machines to some folks and that causes us a problem—that is a security issue. On the other hand, there is opportunity with Russia. There is important opportunity with Russia and if we again take advantage of that opportunity politically and economically, because they are in desperate need of infrastructure in that very, very large country of theirs. Getting a phone call across the country is as much of an effort as anything you’ve ever seen. To the average citizen, it is impossible. When you watch them come out of a 20-story high-rise building with one light bulb in the living room hanging through that window and walk outside to a pump about a block away in order to get water, which I wouldn’t call fresh water and take it back up again, you know they are in trouble and I’ve seen that in the Far East military districts of Russia. If we want to protect our future, we can’t write Russia off. We’ve got to pay attention to them and military engagement is a great way to do it and they are wide open to that initiative and we are taking advantage of that in places like Alaska specifically.  

As we move down, we get to one of what I would call three areas of attraction. What do I mean by attraction? I mean it attracts security interests or it attracts economic interest. One of those three interests is Korea. Korea is very important to us, right now. Lest we not ever forget what is going on--we have about 500,000 North Koreans sitting across the border from our forces and ready at almost a moment’s notice to prosecute what would be a very bloody war. With one pull of the laniard, somewhere between 350 and 500 thousand rounds come out of the tubes at a rate of 350 to 500 thousands rounds per hour. That is an artillery barrage of biblical proportions. Then the shock of the attack that would come after that, well, it would be a war that would shake us to our very foundations. Nothing that has happened over there has moved any of those forces away from the border.

Airpower is very highly leveraged in blunting that attack, in halting that attack, and creating the conditions for a counter attack--we can’t forget that. That is first and foremost of importance to us. Anything that detracts from our ability to win that one means that the war will go on longer and that the casualty rate will become higher. There is not an issue of whether we win or lose that war, I don’t believe in anybody’s mind. It is a matter of: At what cost? I don’t think the nation has seen a war like that since it happened the last time and it would be devastating. 

I wonder what would happen if number one son up there on the north side finally got somebody advising him that came to him and said, “you know what? We’ve been going about this the wrong way. The U.S. does not want to fight this war. As a matter of fact, neither do we, really. The best we could probably do is lose a lot of guys and work some kind of political settlement that we would get a quid for pulling back. But you know, there is another way. If you want to stay in power and if you want to keep your power base around you, you’ve got to make the country get well.” That is a tall order, but out there are a hundred other countries that are falling all over themselves to come in and try to help them out. All you’ve got to do is open up your arms a little bit. If that guy is there talking to number one son, we are in trouble because right now the press is touting him as the new renaissance man. Geez, we’ve underestimated this guy. He is really a pretty good guy. Big smile on his face. Warm handshake. Come on in. Sit down. Let’s talk. You don’t want us to build nukes? Not a problem. You don’t want us to build missiles or shoot them over Japan? Not a problem. You give me this and this and this and we can talk. And you know what? There is a lot of people out there who are willing to give it to him. Maybe it is not such a bad idea. Maybe the South Koreans ought to take the lead and show us exactly what is right and what is wrong. That is what they are trying to do right now. 

Where is this going? I don’t know. But I know this: If we look to Europe and we saw the reunification of Germany, we know that West Germany had to tax their citizenry pretty steeply in order to pay for that reunification. The economic ratio is about three times worse than the difference between West and East Germany and the recapitalization of East Germany. It is about three times worse for Korea. South Korea would have to flow that cash north. The problem is, if it comes to that, then the military force structure that they are paying for right now as part of burden sharing, sitting over there in South Korea, they are going to have a tough time continuing to pay for that military force structure over there. So, again: What if? Don’t know, can’t predict, but what if one of the outcomes went something like this: You’ve been talking about being expeditionary. Great. That is exactly what we need. You put a flag in there that says 8th Army and you put a flag in there that says 7th Air Force and you put some officers there. But go back over the horizon and be expeditionary if we need you. Because that is exactly what we need is we need your presence over the horizon, but your support right here. Well, the glue that holds everything together in that region is the 50-27 war plan. And the minute you do that and start moving forces away from the border as confidence-building measures and so on and so forth, you begin to unravel that plan. That plan is like a finely-tuned motor. When you unravel it, you’ve got to rebuild it. You’ve got to redo it in order to fight and win. 

When we undid the 41-02 plan in Europe, the planning business just stopped. It wasn’t too long after that that 41-02 became so irrelevant, we couldn’t rebuild it and the first thing you know, the wall came down and we started sending people home and closing bases. A lot of people remember that. A lot of people say the only reason that forces need to stay over there is because of Korea and if the war plan becomes irrelevant, then the forces need to come home. I think a debate would occur in Washington with two sides. One side would argue that, the other side would argue that we are a world power and we need to project that power in the Pacific and therefore, we need force structure—a capabilities argument.

I tell you, when you argue on a war plan basis, wearing the uniform is pretty darn good for winning the argument. Because a lot of people will defer to you because that is what you’ve done for your entire life. But when you just talk pure capabilities, now the gloves are off and everybody who wears a suit or a uniform is treated equal and then politics enters the game. The good news is lessening of tensions. The bad news is there is a ripple effect that starts to occur from this, depending on who wins the argument—and I don’t know who would win it—but the argument would go over some other points, too.

Why are we in Japan? Firsts, we were an occupation force. Second, we were there and we built up to fight the Korean War. Then hey, if the Russians are a basket-case, there is no more Soviets, the war plan is now irrelevant. If that happens then people will argue “why are we in Japan?” They are our lynchpin ally and we’ve been arguing for them to take more and more responsibility for themselves. And much like the Koreans: What if? Not saying they would and not saying we want this to happen, but what if the political decision was, you know, that is about the right way to go? Put the flag in here. Let’s lower the force ratio of all the forces that are in Japan—Navy and Air Force specifically—and go ahead and use that expeditionary over-the-horizon presence again to come in rapidly if necessary. But we are growing and World War II is over for us. You are no longer an occupation force. You don’t need to go back into Korea they way you had to in the 1950s and the 1960s.  

That presents a set of conditions, geopolitical conditions. Back in Washington, there is this buzz--capability for the Pacific. No, no. You’ve got it wrong. That force was there to win the Korean War. It is no longer relevant. That is one of these attractor areas. It is one that we need to consider. The other thing I would throw out for interest sake. If we did get it wrong with the Chinese and they were interested in going asymmetric on a large scale against us, imagine a scenario where you have China and Korea—two MTWs in the same CINC’s theater—connected strategy-wise because one is using the other to split our force. The desert hasn’t gone away, the Balkans haven’t gone away. How many MTWs is that? I’ve lost count. I am not exactly sure. It is a lot of force requirement. It is a complicating scenario, believe me.

As we swing down a little bit farther, we look at Vietnam. Interesting opportunities there. You know, Cam Ranh is still a great port and still a great air base. The idea of working to accommodate interest certainly has security implications. I think we look at a place like Cam Ranh Bay and we look at the desires of Vietnam to find its place in the Western Pacific nation-group and we are interested. It remains to be seen what will happen, but there are certainly some quids there that we could use to our advantage.

As we come down the coast a little farther, you get to the China-Taiwan issue and that is the other area of attraction. As I said before, China is a huge trading partner with us and bound to get bigger. Their desire for natural resources, their desire for trade, their cheap labor, the economic conditions there are ripe for exploitation for both of us in a win-win way. Or, we’ve got the Taiwan issue, which unfortunately, is driving everything with them in their relations with the United States right now. It is a national, vital interest to the Chinese. If you will remember from your war college days, that means they are willing to fight for it. They are. There is nobody who doubts that. They don’t want to, they’ve got a lot to lose, but if it goes south, they would be willing to fight for it. We’ve got to keep that in mind and we are. That occupies a lot of my time.

Move a little farther down and you get to the Spratleys, you get to the Philippines. The access across the Spratleys, which has a China interest there, also has the interest of five other countries. That access is certainly aided and abetted by access into the Philippines. You remember when we were there before, it was a wonderful place to go. The Philippines internally are dealing with a lot of the things that many of the smaller countries in the Pacific are dealing with. There is insurrection and instability and the governments are moving in and out. There is one fundamentalism or one type of communism. That has been there for years and years. I unfortunately had two crew chiefs in 1990 who were shot walking out of a hotel when we were deployed there. Somebody who didn’t like Americans walked out of the alley and shot them getting into a jeep and that is going on today. That was going on then. It will go on in the future. If we go into the Philippines, that is the kind of environment that we are going to go into. We have dealt with it. But the Philippines is an important place as far as access goes and so, therefore, engagement is pretty high on our priority list to get back with the Philippines.  Not that we are going to rebuild a Philippines or Crow Valley or Clark for the Air Force. But, we are not going to write them off, either. They need some things from us. We need some things from them. And we are ripe for good engagement with the Philippines.

As you come back around the corner, you get into Indonesia. But before I talk about Indonesia, let me say the greatest friends we’ve got down there are certainly the Australians. They’ve been with us in every war we’ve fought, going back all the way to World War I. They have some wonderful bases along the northern cape of Australia. Those bases are suitable for fighters, they are suitable for bombers. They would offer them up to us in a minute if we needed to go down there. They are also suitable for airlift and humanitarian missions that could possibly occur through there because that is a tough neighborhood down there in terms of the kinds of things that go on, whether it be the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, coming apart at the scenes with some 40-45,000 Americans stretched from an end-to-end that runs from Miami to Seattle equivalent and we are sitting there as an Air Force waiting for the word that says, “go in and get them out.” That is a horrendous problem to go do a NEO of that size across an area like that. Australia would be a major player if we had to do something like that.  

With them, right close by, is New Zealand. Again, great friends in an area that hopefully we are going to work better relationships. They are a little far removed in terms of distance, but they are certainly not far removed in terms of the support that we could count on because they are such good friends.

As we round the corner, I mentioned Indonesia. But tucked up there nice and close are a couple other places that are pretty important. If you go to Utopao today and look at those acres and acres and acres of beautiful concrete, just waiting for somebody to land on them, the only thing you’ll see there are a couple of Russian airliners taking the Russian mafia folks to the beach. They fly down there in an Aleutian. They park three or four of those airliners there. The crew all go to the beach. The folks inside all go to the beach and the airplane just sits there and doesn’t turn a wheel. There is not a lot of industry going on there. Not a lot of revenue coming from normal airline traffic. But that is about all that you will see and a few odd ball flights that will come through. Thailand, again, an important friend, a good ally—and by the way, five of the seven defense treaties that the United States has are in the Pacific area. Good ally. And a great exercise partner and some day we may be very, very happy we have access to get in through Utopao.

Next door, you’ve got Singapore. Wonderful, wonderful people the Sings. It is a country and a business, all wrapped into one. They live in a tough neighborhood. We are their friends and they want us there. They are building a huge airport, a third runaway that they want us to operate off of. They are asking us: How do we do military and civilian flights off the same runway, like we do in Hawaii or other places? We are showing them how to do that. They’ve run a pier out in the water just for the purpose of docking a carrier at the end of that pier. It is costing them an additional hundred million dollars and they are paying it out of their pocket just so the carrier will go in their and park. They want Americans in Singapore. We’ve got a squadron there. We do air-to-air training, primarily and some search and rescue. We can count on them and they are good friends.

As I come around the corner then, you’ve got Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia sits about 1,500 miles off the southern tip of India out in the middle of nowhere. It is 12 hours flying time from Guam, which is eight hours from Hawaii. But it is a strategic location. It is owned by the Brits. It is run by the Navy and we are the biggest customer that they’ve got right now. It is a place that I would hate to see us give up because you can draw those arrows north or you can draw them east or you can draw them west into Africa. Diego is a key lily pad. Unfettered access and a key lily pad. It is worth the investment in Diego that we are making.

What is it that this swing around the horn there really conveys to you? It conveys some of the things you heard in the previous briefings. Everybody has got an access problem. I don’t care whether you are in a carrier battle group or whether you are in an Aegis cruiser of a submarine or whether you are in the 25th ID trying to get into one of those areas or the third MIF doing one of those NEOs, everybody has got an access problem. 

Lifting and tanking is probably one of the biggest businesses in the Pacific. Pass and gas is absolutely essential to everything that we do, whether it is in the air or on the ground on one of the lily pads. When you look at a base, what you are looking for is concrete, you are looking for fuel storage, the ability to pump fuel, to move the bridge through and then within range of operations for the intended mission, whether it be humanitarian, disaster response because of the volcanoes and earthquakes and typhoons and Tsunamis, or combat.

You will put a premium on space in this theater because if you want dwell-time, you’ve got to have a combination of assets to bring to play and space is very important for that, too. ISR is very big here and dwell-time is a function of the distance and the time and as Johnny was talking about, if you want to turn the firehose on some place in order to keep the presence or the pressure on, the farther and farther the distance away is, the more and more force you’ve got to get in there to keep that pressure on or you are just sortieing back and forth and the pressure is light. If the pressure is going to be light, then the accuracy and the lethality better be darn good and the ISR to pick the right targets so that you can get that combination of effects. 

That is the Pacific. I don’t know how we can predict the future but I do know that the conditions in Korea, for example, are different than they’ve ever been before. This is not a rod bending back where it was and springing back to the old way of doing business. This a rod that has been bent and it has been bent far enough where it is never going to go back to the way it was before. There is something going on there and I don’t know exactly what it is, but we better watch it and we better realize what the conditions may be, depending on which path the ripple effect takes. We better be thinking about that ahead of time. I don’t know what is going to happen in China. But clearly, there is something going on there. And they have a view of their place in that entire area and we’ve seen from their past that they’ve gotten involved, from their north all the way around to their west side, when it suits their purposes, and they will do it again.

Something will happen there and it will affect aerospace forces. You can bet. It is just a matter of what fashion and that is why we’ve got to watch the politics and we’ve got to watch the money. Money drives a lot. You will decide not to do some things in order to keep up good relations where economics are involved. So that is an important factor.

The last thing I want to mention is, if those economic factors or political factors rearrange our U.S. forces as a result, if that were to happen, I mentioned the term “unfettered access” in Diego Garcia. There are a couple other places like that, too. If I was a stockholder in Guam, I’d put a lot of money in there because I think that stock is going to go up. Everybody and their brother and I am not talking just about the Air Force, but the other services, are beginning to cast covetous sideway glances at Guam and they are doing calculations about, “wouldn’t it be nice, if?” I talked to my fellow component commanders and they are doing the same kind of calculations that I am talking to you about. Even little out-of-the-way places like Wake Island suddenly take on a new appearance when you start talking about the need for access or the need for the air bridge and having a lily pad some place is very important. If you are moving A-10s or C-9s or AV-8s, flying them all the way across and tanking them all the way across is either impossible or not practical. Some of those little lily pads mean a lot. You don’t have to build them up a bunch, but you’ve got to have concrete. You’ve got to have fuel storage and you’ve got to be able to pump the fuel.

Then, as I look farther north, even some far out-of-the-way places like Shemya become suddenly important to me if I don’t have another way to get there. We have under-funded some of those places in the past to the point where there are big bills that are needing to be paid in those specific areas I mentioned that support the air bridge or support the troop lift. As we look at those areas, our concern is that we pay enough of those bills where we can always have the option of moving that force through. I think with certainty we can say at this point, in one way or another, aerospace forces are going to continue to have to be brought to bear across this huge area here. As I said, it is a long way to get from anyplace. I think this area right here is going to drive aerospace business for a time to come.

When it happens, it will be probably a shock to us because the business that we’ve had up to now has been mostly in the desert. It has been mostly in the Balkans. But the time is coming when our decision is going to have to be how do we once again split more of those resources and worry about problems in the Pacific. I would foot-stomp again a point I think is true and one that I would make about Korea. If the war plan comes unstuck, a lot of things come unstuck. If you want to keep your eye on something that is interesting, keep your eye on whatever initiatives start to come out of the sunshine policy between North and South Korea, which by the way, up to this point, the U.S. has not necessarily had a lot of dialogue in. That is a Korea-Korea kind of thing and it will be interesting to see how the new administration takes that one on and whether we have more of a say in that or not.

I didn’t mention one other area and I’ll mention it very briefly, although that is not to say it is not important. But the third area of attraction and interest, of course, is India-Pakistan. A miscalculation along the border of India-Pakistan, the Indians move across, the Pakistanis see that as a move against the national survival. They are both nuclear powers. They are not either one of them equipped with the ISR that can keep them accurately informed about the other’s activities. A miscalculation there that is at the national decision-making level, seen as a threat to national survival, is what brings the nukes into play. That would be a catastrophic event, again of biblical proportions to humanity in that whole area. On the other hand, India has a lot to gain. They have a vision for themselves, too. They are going to become the most populated nation very shortly. They are very aggressive in terms of their economic development and the things that are going on there are really quite amazing. They are, in fact, making some significant progress and they also do not want to see that stop by having to switch and fight a war and then have some sort of military build-up as the follow-up to the exclusion of what they could be doing economically. And they are in the mood to talk to the U.S. right now. We are just initiating once again mil-to-mil contacts with the Indians that I think will prove to be very productive. They have just had a disaster there of significant proportions. I was going to be over there this last week and was really hopefully going to be able to initiate some of those conversations. I talk on the phone with their air chief. He is a great guy. I think there is great opportunity there. I am really optimistic for the future in that area, albeit the threat of a miscalculation is one in this third area of interest that should keep us all concerned.

That is what I call my “Waltz Around the Pacific.” That is what is going to drive aerospace interests in the area. These interests will play out in probably the next few years--not the next 20 or 30 or 40, but in the next few years--certainly within the reasonable working time of many of the younger officers in here and a lot of you who are attending. 

Let me say at this point, I want to thank you for the opportunity to come here. Thanks to the AFA. Once again, as Speedy Martin said, it was really neat to see the ROTC kids out there. The CAP was out there. The problem about ROTC and I look at Hal Hornburg in the office. John said I was from Texas A&M. Those years were very formative years when John Peterson (“Peto”) and Hal and I were all at A&M. We learned a lot of respect for civics and citizenship and authority and it reminds me of a situation when the three of us were in San Antonio. We had just gotten out of jail. We found a couple of bars that were loose and we went out through the window and actually we were running down the street to the farmers’ market. If you are familiar with San Antonio, they’ve got a big farmers’ market there. The local gendarmes were chasing us and Hal and Peto were running along and we turned into the big farmers’ market storage area and there were some very large crates and the guys were gaining on us. So, I said, “hey, everybody jump in one of these crates and just follow my lead.” I got in the first one. Hal got in the second one. Peto got in the third one. He closed the lid and you can hear the police coming in and one of the sheriff’s deputies said “where did they go? Where did they go? We don’t see them.” He said, “check the crates.” One of the deputies came up and he beat on the crate that I was in. I went, “moo.” The deputy said, “hey sheriff, there ain’t nothing in this one but a cow.” He said, “well, check those other crates.” He went up and he beat on the one that Hal was in and Hal went, “oink.” He said, “hey sheriff, there is nothing in here but a pig.” So Peto, taking the lead, was in the third crate and the sheriff’s deputy went up there and beat on the crate. From out of the crate came soybeans. (Laughter). 

Thank you very much.

Q. Recently, there have been a number of negative incidents involving the U.S. military and, particularly, Japanese citizens. How do these events impact PACAF’s mission?

General Gamble: Nothing good has happened recently that you’ve read in the papers, especially if it’s above the fold. In the long term, Japan is a lynchpin ally. They are very strong allies and we rely on them and they are going to rely on us. I don’t see anything effecting the basic core alliance there. But I see some very difficult times as they deal with their population much as we would have to deal with ours in similar situations. Interestingly enough, as we’ve seen in the past, popular influence on decision-making at the political and diplomatic level can change things. I would hesitate to try to predict what can happen. I do know these relationships right now, though, are suffering a low-point because there has been a concurrence of two or three events right now with the Japanese that have really upset their citizenry. I am full of sorrow for their loss. I completely understand where it is coming from. And while I see this as more of a reason why if things should come unloose in Korea, Japan might not be too unsettled by the idea that it is time to let America be more responsive from a distance while we get our house in order defense industry-wise and defense capability-wise. I don’t think it is going to impact the bedrock alliance that we have with the Japanese. They are still very good friends. They are very supportive. We’ve got a great relationship with them.

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