The Honorable James G. Roche
Secretary of the Air Force
AFA National Symposium — Los Angeles
November 16, 2001
Thank you. I’m the third part of the Jumper-King Show. We thought we actually
could change the whole thing to make it Larry, Curly and Moe, but unfortunately,
Larry’s agent said, no. (Laughter)
But I was honored to be with General Jumper and it is a pleasure for me to be
here. Let me start with some words of someone whose name you certainly know:
"Those who man our defenses and those behind them who build our defenses must
have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakeable belief in the
manner of life which they are defending. A good society is able to face schemes
of world domination and foreign revolution alike without fear. Since the
beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual
peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting
itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quick lime
in the ditch.
The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working
together in a friendly, civilized society. This nation has placed its destiny in
the hands, heads, hearts of its millions of free men and women as faith in
freedom under the guidance of God.
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to
those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity
of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end, save victory." That was
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
But what is interesting is, it was Franklin Roosevelt in January of 1941, not
January of 1942. It was 11 months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, where he
could see what was coming and was trying to get the nation ready.
So, good afternoon. Thank you John. I appreciate the introduction.
It is truly a pleasure to finally have an opportunity to meet with our Air
Force Association. I was scheduled to address your national convention in
Washington last September 17, along with General Jumper. But as you know we
suddenly became occupied doing other things.
We often speak of our extended Air Force family. One composed of our active
duty, Guard, Reserve, civilians serving the Air Force mission worldwide, as well
as their families and loved ones. But our family also includes those 150
thousand citizens who follow and support our work through the Air Force
Association. Indeed, just as our accomplishments to date in Afghanistan have
resulted from teamwork across the services, so, too, can we attribute our
success in air-and-space operations to our entire extended family. This most
certainly includes the participation, feedback and constructive prodding we
receive from you, John, and your fellow AFA members.
As President Roosevelt noted, it is not just those who man our defenses, but
also those behind them who must possess an unshakeable belief in the manner of
life in which they are defending. It is a point well taken even about 61 years
later, especially in the context of today’s challenges.
Prior to the 11th of September, Don Rumsfeld had us all engaged in
an intensive series of studies and debates about the proper path for modernizing
and transforming our Armed Forces for the challenges of the 21st
century. Those of you familiar with the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and
several other studies, are aware that defense against terrorism and other
asymmetrical threats, include Homeland Defense, were identified as areas of
particular interest for future defense planning. The emphasis was on future.
As Yogi Berra once noted, "the future ain’t what it used to be." (Laughter)
For us, the distant, amorphous future has become a clear, present and
immediate danger and clearly we are redoubling our efforts to respond to these
asymmetric threats. It is constructive to also review the significance of some
previous events which threaten the very life of our nation, but from which we
emerged stronger and more united than ever before.
The shot heard ‘round the world in Lexington Green, during the American
Revolution. More lives were lost on September 11th than our fledgling
Republic lost during the entire Revolution.
The Battle of Antietam or Sharpsburg to some, the historic standard for
sanguinary clashes of arms on American soil, but which saw even fewer actual
deaths on 17 September 1862 than those we just suffered in New York and the
Pentagon.
And the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a devastating blow, not only to our
naval forces in the Pacific, but also to the sense of security our nation
enjoyed from the seemingly protective expanse of two of the world’s largest
oceans. Of course, more than twice as many people were killed at the World Trade
Center than on December 7, 1941.
I understand John made mention of the fact that he and I went down to visit
Ground Zero. I am sure his emotions are exactly the same as mine. It was
surreal. It was much larger. Tom White, Secretary of the Army, encouraged me to
do this. He said because you can’t put this into a TV picture. No matter how big
your tube is or how big your screen is, it just doesn’t capture it. You have to
be there. And we were.
And as we were there, many thoughts raced through our minds. First, it made
one very sad, to recognize there are still close to 4,000 human beings lying in
this still smoldering rubble. Secondly, it made you angry. But it also made you
resolve that the American ideals for which our men and women fight are ideals
worth fighting for.
The problem with the terrorists who attacked us September 11th is
that they missed their target. They missed the foundation upon which our nation
stands. America is not a building designed in the shape of skyscrapers or a
pentagon. It is certainly not about money, wealth or technology or even a higher
standard of living.
America is an idea, a brand, an ongoing experiment like no other in the
history of mankind. But we have been attacked and we are fighting back. As you
can see from recent news reports, we’ve made a bit of progress. I happen to know
a great deal about that part of the world, so I’ll point out to you that it is
my view that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are not yet on their way out. In fact,
they may only be in remission. We must continue to pursue and must not declare
any victory prematurely. But we did do one thing: we kept our word. The Taliban
no longer controls Afghanistan.
The President and the Secretary of Defense have explained this war will have
many components: military, diplomatic, financial and every agency and means of
our government and of our allies as our disposal. We are also far from the end
or even the beginning of the end of this conflict. We may be, however, as
Winston Churchill noted after the RAF had bested the Luftwaffe in the Battle of
Britain, near the end of the beginning.
We also face new challenges. Let me give you some figures. Two hundred sixty
aircraft, 350 crews, 11,000 airmen and--John may have covered this, this
morning. What do they mean? That is the effort currently required for the Air
Force part of Homeland Defense that General Eberhardt knows so well.
Every single day, we allocate 260 airplanes, 350 crews roughly and over
11,000 airmen. That contrasts to the 12,000 airmen we’ve deployed to augment the
forces in South Asia. In many respects, we are living with the two MTW
contingencies, overseas and at home. But the one at home we never anticipated.
General Eberhart’s job is to keep people from flying into our airspace. His job
now is to somehow master our element of space.
At the same time, John Jumper and I have undertaken the mandate from the
President to re-think, transform and adapt our Air Force of the future. I can
tell you that the attacks on September 11th have made it even more
urgent that we adapt the Department of Defense and the Air Force to take
advantage of the technology of the current century to protect our nation against
current and future threats.
I became Air Force Secretary almost six months ago. Over the course of that
time, I have tried periodically to get on the road to meet various people in the
Air Force in the streets and the communities. Next week, my wife and I are going
to the garden spots of Europe to be with our troops in Spain, Italy, Bosnia and
Germany. To be with the troops who were involved in earlier contingencies, but
who are not currently on the front page of our papers. But to make a point that
we have not forgotten that they are still there, still flying over the Balkans,
still flying Northern Watch.
But wherever I go, I’ve engaged with folks about how we intend to shape our
Air Force so it is poised for the current century, not for the century of the
World Wars and Cold War that we won and left behind, and which seems like a
long, long time ago and during which most of our systems were built.
My focuses fall into four general categories: strategy, people, efficiency
and the industrial base. It seems to me, as we look at space and the future of
the Air Force, that our performance in the space arena will prove to be a key
indicator of how well the Air Force as a whole will fulfills our
responsibilities in the 21st century.
The Air Force is a very fascinating institution. It was born in war. Most of
its life has been in war. Only now does it face the issue of: How does it have
the relevance we need to have when we don’t have war the way we had war? That is
the bad news. The good news is the Air Force is probably the most agile of
services. My former colleagues, I often refer to as still stuck at Trafalgar,
we’re not. We adapt. We can do things very quickly. But it means that we have to
allow the thinking to come up so that we can.
Now, referring specifically to space, my first priority is to work with the
under secretary, when confirmed, General Jumper, and others of our colleagues,
to adjust our strategic parameters to fit the challenges and opportunities of a
new security environment. Our business, as I note, is global reconnaissance and
strike. Our challenge is to focus our strategy and people and investment to stay
number one in that military capability for many, many decades to come.
To do so, we need to get after and fully act upon a space road map that
details exactly how we plan to integrate air and space operations in pursuit of
global reconnaissance and strike superiority. I can’t believe that General
Jumper came to an audience and did not explain horizontal integration to you and
everything else, so I won’t go into that in any greater detail. There is no
finer spokesman of a concept than is our Chief.
We need to drive our plans, and doctrine and systems to fully incorporate the
promise of space power. For example, how will we provide persistent ISR across a
critical section of a distant country in all weather scenarios, 24-hours a day,
for, say, a year? How will we protect space assets? What kinds of space
architecture should we pursue to support national missile defense? These
questions will increasingly occupy our best minds in the years ahead of us.
And then particularly of interest to General Jumper and me is how will we
respond with the lethality and precision to pop-up targets in seconds or
minutes, not hours, not days?
Second, as part of our overall imperative to attract and retain the best
people in a high-technology world, we will accelerate our efforts to develop a
fulfilling career in Air Force space. This includes developing career
progression, educational opportunities, other tangible measures of affirmation
that capitalize on the brilliance and expertise of our space airmen and
civilians.
I recognize that we’ve done much in this area already. I thank Ed Eberhart
for a lot of his thinking in this area. But much more work is underway and much
more still needs to be done. I am sure we would all agree – General Jumper,
General Eberhart, Les Lyles and others – that is a critical area that we simply
must master if we are to remain the leaders that we are in space.
My third priority is to recognize how we can be as efficient and
cost-effective in all that we do, in part by looking at best business practices
and processes in our acquisition programs and operations. In space, if you look
at the approach to the evolved expendable launch vehicle, where we are
partnering with two major primes who are pursing alternative approaches to
future space launch platforms, you will see that space is an area that offers
great opportunities for acquisition excellence.
By employing space assets seamlessly with air and ground assets, we will
enhance the conduct of our global operations. We simply must find ways to get
more out of our space assets, the horizontal integration of systems, smarter
management of the information we obtain from space systems and what we then do
with that information.
Finally, I don’t need to tell this group, of all groups, about the critical
need our nation faces to provide more incentives to industry for innovation.
Over the past several years, the number of suppliers to Air Force munitions in
space has dwindled from double digits to only a handful. This is what I consider
an unfriendly environment to innovation. I regret to note, I increasingly am
concerned about the costs of scheduled management on a couple of our major space
programs. I am not sure why I see the performance problems I am seeing, but they
have captured my attention and will capture the under secretary’s attention,
when he is confirmed, and have certainly captured General Jumper’s attention.
We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to get better.
The CEOs of particular firms, I, General Jumper, General Eberhardt are going
to be spending a lot more time together. Those firms who perform will do well as
preferred suppliers. Those who don’t, well, you can fill in the blanks.
As I mentioned, we are guided, as we study and review, we organize and adapt
the space part of the Air Force in large part by the recommendations the Space
Commission published last January. Secretary Rumsfeld’s memorandum to the
Department just last month outlined several compelling mandates that we have
embraced and are already implementing. Such as assigning the Air Force as the
executive agent for DoD Space, for classified as well as unclassified. By the
way, we chose and asked that be done by memorandum and not by legislation
because we wanted it to be removed from us by memorandum if we failed to earn
the trust and confidence of the other services. Assigning the management of the
space career field to Space Command. Realigning staff and functions of the
assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space to the Under Secretary, who will
also be the director of the NRO, as was the case in the old days. Reassigning or
realigning the Space and Missile Systems Center here in El Segundo under Air
Force Space Command. We will stay the course on these efforts, even as we
continue to patrol the skies of Iraq in Northern and Southern Watch, monitor the
skies over the Balkans, protect the air space of Americans, conduct combat
operations over Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere and provide humanitarian
support to people all over the world.
I know John spoke to you this morning about integrating air and space into a
seamless force for the 21st century and he is absolutely right on. It
is one of the compelling drives for our Air Force that we be masters of air and
space. This is an effort that was begun several years ago and as I’ve said it
has become even more urgent than before. The same challenges we have been facing
in our efforts throughout the years to integrate operations and fly in space
remain. Integrating the broad variety of plans and strategies from all the
organizations that have a stake in space. And I think we discover new ones each
month. In some cases, we are developing plans and strategies that don’t yet
exist. Proving and expanding our air-and-space crosstalk for our personnel so we
can continue to develop and broaden their experiences. It is my belief that we
have to open up billets in the headquarters Air Force for Navy and Army officers
to participate with us in this endeavor and have them join our staff as part of
space.
We have to be able to find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess any target
anywhere in the world within hours or minutes or seconds as appropriate. We have
to understand that strike means creating the right effect at the right place at
the right time regardless of an adversary’s attempt to deny access to our
forces. We also recognize that space capabilities play an important role in
every strike scenario. This includes not just bombs on targets, but also
dropping humanitarian food supplies to starving people in Afghanistan, for
example, as well as direct, real-time support to our special forces operating in
the field. It has to be seamless.
These are just a few of our specific requirements in space. There are others.
As technology evolves through this century, we will see a decrease in the use of
conventional platforms and a need to increase emerging, transformational
capabilities to protect our national security, especially those in space. This
is why we remain dedicated to transforming our organizational structures and
strategic principles and operational space systems. There is no reason for us to
be stuck (unintelligible)...
Finally, I want to recognize that some of the most dedicated and talented
scientists, engineers and space technology professionals live and work right
here in Los Angeles, right here in the basin. It was here that much of the
establishment of the aircraft industry was born and I’ve always thought there
was something in the water that generated the creative aerospace minds. I know
it was certainly not something in the air. (Laughter).
I believe Los Angeles area has and will continue to be key to the space
industry. I wanted to deliver just a hint of some tough love to several
executives here today because we will look to industry for some of those
solutions we will require to uphold America’s future superiority in space. We
need your best thoughts, your best practices and your best management in these
particular programs.
I want to thank you for your support to the Air Force and to our mission. We
cannot do without you, especially if we wish to continue to assert that no one
comes close, except the air hammer.
In conclusion, I appreciate very much the opportunity to be here to speak to
you and if we have time, I’d like to open up the floor to questions.
Q: Please give us your take on the planned recommendations of the Scowcroft
Panel for reorganizing intelligence operations, specifically the proposal to
transfer the NRO to the CIA.
Secretary Roche: To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think any of us have
read the Scowcroft Commission. But we have read press leaks and reports about
it. So, we shouldn’t ascribe something that may not even be his. Should it be,
however, (laughter) it is a particularly dumb idea (applause).
Q: How will depot support figure into keeping the Joint Strike Fighter flying
now that the contract has been awarded?
Secretary Roche: The biggest problem we are going to have is to convince
people that Joint Strike fighter is not available next week. We have to remember
this is a program that is entering EMD. I am fond of pointing out and I did so
at the AFA meeting in Washington that the F-22 is 20 years old this year. Twenty
years old. My point was, it is time to produce it, darn it. It is time to
produce it. I was chided by a certain leader in the Pentagon for being so
bullish on this. I said, well, how long should we wait? Until it is 40 years old
before we produce it? We’ve got to get on with it. The point is, we have a 12
year EMD program with the Joint Strike Fighter and we are trying to do it in
spiral fashion. General Jumper and I have made it clear that no plane could ever
go through what the F-22 has gone through. A part of it, by the way, is the
fault of all of us. We set requirements sometimes in stupid ways. We try and
sell it by offering everything plus invisibility and then we are haunted by
others merely pointing out our own requirements.
The depot support issue for the Joint Strike Fighter is one that will evolve
over time. Right now is to keep it together as much as possible to benefit the
synergies of about 80 percent overlap overall and that includes things like
trying to think through a single training, single school house and a few others
and to try to keep the support done in such a way that we can benefit from the
synergies. But we know we are going to get pressure from the Europeans to have
at least a support facility in Europe. We may get pressure on co-production.
There is a lot that would make this more complicated than it first appears to
be. But we’ve got time.
Q: Unintelligible
Secretary Roche: Well, effectively what is going to happen when the under
secretary is confirmed is that by being both the head of the NRO as a joint
reporting relationship directly to the DCI and directly to the SecDef and having
white space together, what we are doing is looking for best practices from arrow
(?) and best practices from elsewhere. That is why I think we should have
headquarters Air staff billets open to space Naval officers and space Army
officers. There is no reason to put spies in, why don’t they just join the team?
If we are going to earn people’s trust, it is better to have them part of the
solutions compared to part of the problem. It is to try to treat all of space in
a similar manner. That is why it is effective. We have a lot of acquisition
capabilities, we have a lot of monitoring of contracts capabilities. The NRO is
freed from certain diseases that we have to live with, like having to do things
through agencies that we have to do that they don’t have to do. There are many
of the best practices that we would adore moving to the whole Air Force, let
alone to Air Force Space, but it is the fact that it will be done together, that
careers--we’ll have people flowing from NRO to white space to Navy, Army back
and forth--civilians that we hope to have a competency in space and a very
fulfilling career, in Air Force Space, that is analogous to what we have in the
air dimension.
Q: Unintelligible
Secretary Roche: First, he will be coming to work in the second week after he
realizes what is required of the first week. As you know, Peter Teets has gone
through his confirmation hearing and has a complicated portfolio so the Senate
staff is looking at it very closely, but I am hoping he will be confirmed here
in the not too distant future by the whole Senate. It starts out as an
overwhelming job because it requires three parts to you – DCI part; SecDef part;
the Air Force part. He is also the under secretary of the Air Force. But it is a
way for us to link to the NRO, link all of space together and I think it is a
propitious moment because we have a chief and a secretary who actually believe
that there is no line that says, "oh, you’ve just left air and now you are in
space." One is just higher than the other. We have no problem talking about low
orbiting satellites called Global Hawks and the fact that there is nothing we
can do, really, as airmen without the space component--it’s something that is
well understood across the board. It is just something that General Eberhardt
knows and understands. Or General Lyles or General Lord. It is more and more
understood across the board. And certainly in the situation we face in
Afghanistan, it has told us something about the kind of space assets we’ve
developed. We have never developed systems that sit and look 24 hours a day,
good weather, bad weather for a year. We build systems that say, if it moves we
can kill it. It assumes there is a line in the ground. If it moves to that side
of the line, we can kill it. If it moves on this side of the line, we don’t kill
it. What if we have a minestrone of moving things. No one sensor is going to be
able to do it. It is going to require a mosaic be put together very, very
quickly. The quicker that mosaic comes to pass, the greater will be the demand
on systems that can attack a particular target that needs to be attacked and
assess whether the function we chose to eliminate has been eliminated. I think
this is a good time for this to come together. We will ask him first and
foremost to worry about the integration of white space and black space. I think
the NRO is an established organization and so if Pete is confirmed by the
Senate, he comes from years and years at Denver. He certainly understands
things.
The second will be to help us better integrate space with air. Clearly he
will be the spokesperson, but I think, so is General Jumper and myself. We are
great spokespersons for space. We often spend time at the NRO for various
circumstances. Pete will be able to help us do that.
The third thing is, and probably the toughest, is to earn the confidence of
the other services who start out assuming that we are robbing them.
The fourth will be, in his gentle way, to try to convince the Joint Staff
that it is one thing to add requirements. It is another thing to add
requirements and send money. We understand that we provide a role in space the
way we provide a role in air superiority. But when people start adding on and
making changes, we have to say, "now wait a minute, this has got to be managed a
little bit better" and you just can’t have someone say, "well, I want
perfection" and there is a point that will occur that to get perfection is a
huge increase along the up system.
But coming back the second week is the most important thing.
Q: Unintelligible
Secretary Roche: You probably know more about the economic link than I do.
But certainly, even under Dan Golden, we were starting to meet to talk about
where can the Air Force and NASA proceed well into the future? There are a
number of technology areas where we are highly dependent on the scientists at
NASA and they do some work in some classified areas that is just the best in the
country – and that means the best in the world. We are very respectful of that.
This is a partnership that is not a one-way thing at all. We are at the current
moment trying to think through what should be the next joint venture. We think
it should be some sort of space plane. How big? How small? What should it be?
What should we learn from it? How can we take technologies that have evolved?
What technologies should we pursue? General Eberhardt led an IPT with NASA that
gave us the background to that. He gave us a chance to evaluate some of the
existing candidates. Some are saying we don’t want to pursue those. But we’ve
learned some things and let’s take some of that learning and go forward...I wish
him well in his confirmation hearings and I think he will be a very powerful
advocate for NASA and for making NASA a very relevant organization. What is
interesting is the joke in Washington is OMB has owned NASA for years so this is
just de jure what has been de facto. (Laughter)
Q: Where do you stand on the bandwidth issue? Are there any circumstances
where you might support release of bandwidth for commercial uses?
Secretary Roche: I never thought I’d have to become maven. When the
scientific advisory board of the Air Force reported out, John and I were in the
room and we were both stunned into silence, which is rare for either of us, by
the amount of bandwidth we consume with just one Global Hawk mission. We
realized that we couldn’t put ourselves in a position where we could either have
Global Hawk operations or war. But we couldn’t have a war and Global Hawk
operations. I got to tell you, that brought up the bandwidth problem real, real
fast. I see no reason at this time to give away anything to the commercial
people. None at all. We are going to need every bit of it and the more we think
of these mosaics, the most we think of empowering war fighters at as low a
possible level of criteria to attack based on information from the mosaic, the
more we are going to eat up bandwidth. So that bandwidth may become the bullets
and more important than bullets.
Thank you very much. It is good to see you.
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