AFA Symposium

General Michael E. Ryan
Air Force Chief of Staff
AFA National Symposium — Los Angeles
November 17, 2000

    This is a historic time for our nation in the choice of who will be our next leader, our Commander-in-Chief. As General Shaud said, it is an important time for the Air Force Academy. They have won the Commander-in-Chief trophy all four years that Secretary Peters and I have been in charge of the Air Force. The Army-Navy game is about who is going to get second (laughter). But we are waiting around to find out who the Commander-in-Chief is who is going to deliver this thing.

    I’d like to put a little perspective on what you’ll hear the rest of this symposium, particularly about our partnership and all the types of partnerships that we have in building this aerospace force of ours. I’d like to first talk about some of the challenges that we will face here in the next year as we have a change in administration and leadership on the civilian side of our government. As we work our way through space commissions and quadrennial defense reviews, one of the major issues that will come before our nation and indeed be debated and discussed and studied will be what will the future strategy for our nation be? What will it be for the next 15 years, because you have to look out that far to determine what you do today to build a force for that future. That strategy can vary anywhere from being a hermit nation to the world’s policeman. Most of us think it will fall somewhere in between. If we look back on the past decade of America’s involvement in the world as the only super power, we find that one of the things that assures the prosperity of this nation is our ability to engage not just from just off our shores but around this globe.

    In consonance with that, we produced a vision for the U.S. Air Force earlier this year. That vision was Global Vigilance, Reach and Power, America’s Air Force. That is vigilance to anticipate and deter threats. Reach to curb crises and power to prevail in conflicts and to win America’s wars. The domain we described in that document was the aerospace domain of seamless vertical dimension that we must control as part of our nation’s strategy for the future. And not just around the periphery of the United States, but wherever Americans are engaged around the world. We operate aircraft and space craft optimized for their environments, but the art of commanding aerospace power lies in integrating the systems to produce the exact effects we need for this nation in peace and in war.

    Kosovo was a good example of that. It was the closest we’ve come to that kind of integration. Very difficult targeting problem for our folks to produce the effects that you want. It required real time and near-real time intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and connecting that sensor-to-shooter and we want to do it in seconds in the future. That came on the heels of a drawdown period in which our Air Force had reduced itself by 40 percent--both in terms of resources and force structure and funding. Those last ten years were part of the peace dividend that this nation quite honestly deserved. But in producing that peace dividend we mortgaged much in our service – our readiness has fallen off substantially over the past four years.

    Our mission capability rates on our aircraft are down to the lowest they’ve been in years. We are struggling to recruit and retain the best and brightest this nation has to offer. We have mortgaged much of our infrastructure to pay for current readiness. We are currently on a 250-year replacement rate for our infrastructure. That affects our space launch, our bases, and indeed our industrial capacity. We cannot continue on that vector much longer. The decade of drawdown must be reinforced by a decade of growth, a re-capitalization.

    We need to re-capitalize everyone of our space systems that is on orbit today. The strength of our Air Force has been our ability to reach forward in time and bring capabilities that come in to lead turn and be the asymmetrical advantage of this nation. Things like space-based laser. Our maneuvering space-maneuver vehicle. As well as replacing not just in-kind but with better quantum leap capabilities in our other systems. Re-capitalization will be one of the major issues that we have as we walk into this QDR. Re-capitalization of our infrastructure, re-capitalization indeed of our equipment, re-capitalization of our people. Those will be the themes that we carry into this next decade. There will be ones that must be addressed by whichever administration comes on board with us in January. Part of that re-capitalization has to do with how we handle space in the future.

    The space commission is meeting as we speak and is working very diligently to come up with rational kinds of adjustments that we need to make to ensure that our nation remains the pre-eminent aerospace power. We in the U.S. Air Force in this decade of drawdown have been great stewards of the space force. We have throughout the drawdown maintained at a fairly constant level our funding for our space programs. Of all our programs, our most re-capitalized force is our space force because it must be. We cannot let it fail because it not only supports the United States Air Force, but all the rest of our forces, indeed the national command authority.

    But if you look back in history quite honestly, the Air Force has no Title 10 authority for space. You don’t find it in law, but the U.S. Air Force is in charge and that leads us to some very interesting discussions as you would imagine on what portion of space kinds of capabilities the U.S. Air Force should, must or can pursue. I think that is one of the clarifications that should come out of this QDR.

    The second issue is in these times of very tight fiscal constraint, in a world that has changed in complexion, where we are in a multi-polar world, rather than a bi-polar, how many organizations do we need to do the space business? Do we need two separate organizations within DoD that procure and operate space systems? I think that is another one of the issues that the QDR must address. There are some synergisms in bringing those two organizations together other than at an assistant secretary or under secretary level. There are good and excellent capabilities in both organizations that I think if melded would bring this nation to an even further capability in the future and even further our reach into that vertical dimension.

    There is a whole funding issue about where we go in space. Should we the Air Force, given Title 10 authority, run those things that are utilities in space as we do other utilities such as airlift. Should we capture for the U.S. Air Force those kinds of things that have to do with the warfighting issues that we step up for the funding of those while the community at large steps up to those kinds of capabilities like GPS and communications which are driven by requirements far greater from the outside the Air Force than inside the Air Force?

    I don’t think we need a space corps or a space force. I think our strength is in our capability to meld all the vertical dimension together to produce the effects we need in the defense of this country. What we need is a national commitment in funding to make the vision a reality. Our vision for the future is one of an aerospace force that controls the vertical dimension. The U.S. Air Force will be and currently is an air force whose mission is focused, combat proven, decisive fighting force and with your help, we’ll continue to make it that way with aerospace power so that no one comes close.

    Q: You mentioned the space commission, what is the time table on that? When do they brief out and are you willing to predict an outcome for us?

    General Ryan: Some of us in the room have met with the space commission and I will tell you that I would never presume to predict either the timing or the outcome, but I do believe that they have set a time table for themselves that's in early January. They will outbrief their findings and then there is a period of time where this report, which was congressionally mandated, is delivered to the Congress, specifically the Senate, and that we then would have time to, as an organization, DoD, to respond to that finding. But there will not be a point-counter point. That will be the end of it and I think it will be one of the major inputs into our quadrennial defense review as well as whatever responses, either in the affirmative or taking issue with their findings. Preliminarily they will finish drafting in the next several months and then produce the report in the January time frame.

    Q: You mentioned as a focus of the QDR, re-capitalization. With re-capitalization of personnel, we talked about reformation of the compensation schedule to focus more on skill. Please flesh that out a little bit.

    General Ryan: I’ve been beating that drum for several years now. Because, what we do in the U.S. Air Force to compensate our folks is limited very much by congressional authorities for bonuses. We make up for skill, for pay-for-skill, by a bonus system but is limited too and very boxed. Therefore, in some cases, it is perhaps unfair or ineffective. What I think we need to do for the future is in some ways index skill to like capabilities in industry and in the private sector to be able to pay for it. We can no longer continue to compete without just compensation for our folks. Ours is an Air Force family. We are a family Air Force. Seventy-five percent of our folks are married after their first hitch. It is a family decision of whether they stay or go. The member has about 49 percent of the vote. The families have 51 percent and most of the blue suiters in here know that. It is convincing the families that this is a good lifestyle and a competitive lifestyle for them. That their dreams for the future can be fulfilled to the extent that their talents allow. We need to be able to convince those families that is possible with a career in the Air Force. To do that we have to go to pay for skill rather than pay for rank and we have to in some way index this in a way that does not disenfranchise anyone, but makes sure that we retain those kinds of people that we need in this Air Force to make it the greatest aerospace power in the world. Because it is people that do this, people that make us great.

    Q: Force structure question. During the presidential campaign, the chairman testified that the military could fight on two fronts at the same time. Comment on this and do you see the two MTW still as forming our force structure in the future?

    General Ryan: First of all, we are capable of fighting on two fronts near simultaneously. The U.S. Air Force is not a two MTW force. We swing major portions of our force from one theater to the other. We swing airlift. We swing tankers. We swing our ISR assets. We swing our stealth assets. We swing our space assets. We are not a two MTW force. Are we capable of fighting two major theater wars separated by 45 days in two disparate theaters and winning? Yes. Is the risk in doing that high in terms of additional casualties? Yes. Will we be able to maintain a force to do that in the future? That will depend on what happens in the next five years. We cannot continue on the aging process that we are on today with our force and still expect it to respond at the levels that we think are prudent for fighting those kinds of wars. But I don’t think it will matter whether we come off the strategy – and I am one who thinks that two MTWs is a good strategy to be extant and to force structure against – in fact, it is not a strategy, it is a force structuring tool. But we also have to force structure our force for the day-to-day operations that we have around this globe. In fact, in many cases, the day-to-day operations we have with our expeditionary aerospace force concept and our AEFs out there drives force structure more in some cases. In many cases, than it does two MTWs. I think the next force structuring construct will probably look at not just two MTWs, but will look at small scale contingencies and continuing those small scale contingencies while you fight a major theater war, something we had to do during Kosovo and it stretched us a might thin.

    Q: The vision of an integrated vertical dimension requires leaders with expertise across an increasingly complex dimension. How is the active duty working to enhance that broad expertise?

    General Ryan: We have instituted an office that looks across the board at our Air Force and the capabilities that we have in the Air Force in terms of human resources, leadership and skills for management. We have worked this very hard for about two years to see if there are clusters of capabilities that we want our officers to be capable of. We can’t at the higher levels – colonels and generals – be so narrow that you can only fit into one hole in our Air Force. You must be broad enough to fit in many leadership capabilities and have a broad vision of our Air Force’s capability. That is not a problem of colonels and generals, that is a problem of lieutenant colonels and majors and below because it is at that level that you broaden them in expertise. You broaden them in scope at the higher levels. We are working very hard this issue of how do we grow our leadership for the future instead of just letting it happen. Shouldn’t we try to manage it in some way that is rational. Developing aerospace leaders. We call it DAL. It is a concept that we are approaching right now. But we are implementing many pieces of it already. We are moving individuals from one expertise to the other, trying to broaden our majors and lieutenant colonels, indeed some of our colonels so that they are much broader when they get into the leadership positions of the Air Force than just in their stove pipes. This is a stove pipe busting thing. It is going to be difficult and that is why we are taking our time in doing it. As most of you know, if you leave your tribe, they normally burn your teepee and shoot your pony and never let you come back. We want to make sure that the tribe operates as a nation. And they’ll give you back your pony and your teepee.

    Q: More or less, where does the space program fall in priority with the other services and how much support does the Air Force receive from the other services for all we do for them from space?

    General Ryan: The other services are indeed interested in space. The Air Force provides on the military side 90 percent of the people and 90 percent of the bucks. We get a lot of applause from the other services for our handling of space. The space commission and Ed may talk about this a bit – we had very good kudos from the other services, the CINCs on how the Air Force makes sure that we provide them not just aerospace, but ground space and naval space connectivity that allows them to do their jobs. It is critical to the future. But I don’t think we can continue to do business this way. I think some sharing of this responsibility will have to occur in the future and it will be help, too, because it will have the other services more invested in the outcomes rather than just providing requirements that we need to fill, they also will provide solutions and perhaps some money.

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