General Michael E. Ryan
Air Force Chief of Staff
AFA 17th Annual Air Warfare Symposium--Orlando
February 15, 2001
General Ryan: It is great to be here in Florida with you.
General Shaud has introduced me several times over the years. He makes a
few hints about his responsibility for my leaving Misawa. I want to tell
you the real story.
I had orders in hand, going to be the PACAF/IG. Jane had flown down
to the Philippines and bought the Lanai set. We had the kids registered
in school—the last two that were home. We had all the dimensions of the
house in Honolulu perfectly laid out and we knew where all the furniture
was going to go. And I get this call from Washington, DC that says, "Get
your butt to Washington. In ten days you are going to be the exec to the
Chief." The guy who did that was General Shaud. I am some day going to
get even.
Global Vigilance, Reach and Power are the overarching themes for this
particular AFA symposium. I think that is very much a focus that we have
today and very much one that will carry through well into the future for
the U.S. Air Force. As most of you know, the president is leaving today
or early tomorrow for one of his first trips out of the United States.
We have tried very hard to make arrangements that would make him feel at
home. We are doing some proposed mods on Air Force One and I just want
to show you a couple of those. (Laughter).
This is not sucking up. This is a fellow Texan who has had to live in
Washington, D.C., for four tours and an endure the Redskins and all the
harsh words that come to Texans. I did catch one thing. We took off
"Remember the Alamo," giving where he is going on this trip. (Laughter).
First slide.
I’d like to talk a little bit about Global Vigilance, Reach and Power
in a way that looks backward and then forward for our Air Force. If you
look backwards at what we’ve done over the past ten years in leading to
the 21st century, to try and do innovative things with Cold
War capabilities and turn those into hot war capabilities, you see that
across the spectrum of conflict we have executed missions that we never
thought we would do, had very little warning that we would go to, and,
indeed in many cases, did not expect to be there as long as we stayed.
It is not just that it was across the spectrum of conflict, but that it
happened simultaneously.
If you go back to mid-1999, you’ll find that during that time, in
April, we were doing Shining Hope, an operation that cared for so many
of the Albanian refugees streaming out of Kosovo. At the same time, we
were doing counter-narcotics operations. Operation Northern and Southern
Watch continued unabated. In fact, combat continued in both of those
particular areas over Iraq. We had a major theater war and in the air
war over Serbia and we continued, and indeed, even reinforced in Korea
during that time frame.
The ebb and flow of our capabilities over that past decade give us
some measure of the kinds of things that we’ll be called upon to do in
the future. And the successes of each one of those continue to build on
the successes that we had in the past. In fact, there is almost a
reliance on the capability of aerospace power to move forward and be the
first in, normally to kick down the door, often to provide the needed
humanitarian supplies to those in need. I think that template that we
accomplished all the way from the 1989 time frame as we went into Desert
Storm and the run-up to Desert Storm until the aftermath of Kosovo and
Serbia, are the kinds of challenges we’ll have for the future and we
must be prepared for them—must be prepared for them.
As we look back at what we did over this time frame, we found that
the spikes that occurred to us over this time frame for the different
operations, such as Bosnia and Kosovo, taxed the force in many, many
ways. So we came up with a concept called the Expeditionary Force
concept. As part of that we built force packages, ten of them at any one
time—two online—to take care of the problems that we saw as a continued
drain on the resources while we were still trying to reconstitute from
major operations previously. What we did to ourselves is
organizationally transform ourselves into a sustainable and responsible
force, one that gave some predictability to the lives of our folks while
at the same time giving the kinds of capabilities to the CINCs that they
needed to prosecute the kinds of operations that were required of our
nation.
We packaged something like this in each one of these AEFs with a
capability not only for humanitarian operations, but also for peace
enforcement, for combat if necessary, and reinforcement as necessary,
and packaged the Air Force into packages that were semi-whole, the kind
of measure of our force for the future. And in fact what we want to do
for the future is measure ourselves in terms of AEFs. We are a ten-AEF
deployable Air Force with lots of reach-back for things like space, for
training, for intelligence—those kinds of capabilities that we don’t
want to bring forward with us that are so critical to the kinds of
things that we do in our deployed state.
As we look from what happened to us in Allied Force, where we had a
huge force deployed to 21 locations across Europe and indeed prosecuting
operations from the territory of the United States itself, we were able
to recover out of that back down to a fairly even tempo over this past
year, the first respite we’ve had since that last decade. But still,
with our two AEFs online and ready to go, some deployed forward, some
ready to deploy to reinforce, we don’t know what the future will bring.
If the past is any harbinger of the future, there will be great
uncertainties about the kinds of missions that we’ll be called upon to
prosecute and the kinds and places that we’ll need to go to bring some
form of relief, either in terms of combat power or in terms of
humanitarian responses. Our force structuring mechanism today is moving
toward what we call the AEF force structuring mechanism, describing
ourselves in war plans and other documents as AEFs.
I have to tell you that while all that was going on, we had a huge
challenge in readiness and still do. That has not changed. Back in the
1996-97 time frame, the combat units we have in the Air Force started a
decline in readiness due to aging aircraft, due to the loss of
personnel, due to the lack of spares in some cases. So that as we did
all those operations we talked about before and as our manpower and our
budgets came down during the mid-term of the past decade, our readiness
also fell. We want to be at about a 92 percent readiness rate. That
allows us to respond rapidly to any major theater war or any of those
kinds of operations you saw in the past chart. It is imperative that we
are here because we don’t have time to train to task when we are called
upon. We are a responsive force in hours and days, not months.
In fact, if you look at the combination of the requirements on the
force, 92 percent of the force is used in the first 30 days of either or
both of the major regional conflicts. In this area is where we had
Allied Force. Allied Force drained the force somewhat. They did a
marvelous job in deploying and redeploying, but it took its toll.
We’ve been able through some very tough decisions on what we do about
modernization and what we do about infrastructure to put more resources
into spare parts to take care of these aging aircraft. But there have
been some very, very tough decisions putting us on a path of a 250-year
replacement rate for our infrastructure. Indeed, readiness has somewhat
leveled out over the past year, year and a half. That is partially due
to not stressing the force and partially due to the kinds of funds we
put against our readiness and spares and the emphasis we put on our
people.
The last few years, we’ve been able to do some things that I think
are terribly important for our people. One, we made sure that we paid
them more than we had in the past, that we are on some kind of slope
back up to comparability [with private sector wages]; that we redid the
pay table in a way that was more just; that we were able to change
around and change back to a much needed retirement system that half the
force had and half the force did not; to be able to do what we were able
to do in increasing the amount of money against housing allowances;
indeed to try to shore up our medical system, not only for our active
duty, but for our retirees.
We put a lot of emphasis into the people side of the equation. We
will continue to do that to try to level off this demand that we’ve had
on the outside for our folks and indeed shore up the readiness internal
to the Air Force.
One of the things we have fought hard is the decline in our mission
capability rates of our fleet. Over the past ten years or so, we have
dropped by ten percent the mission capability rate across the Air Force,
across all of our aircraft. In the first quarter of this year, we had
our first up-tick in the past ten years. But meanwhile, flying about the
same number of flying hours every year, the cost of flying those older
aircraft has gone up 41 percent, further draining our capability to pay
for those kinds of operations.
Primarily that is due to the fact that the force is aging out. Today,
the force is 22 years of age—the Total Force (active, Guard,
Reserve)—and as we go out into the future, if we stay on the same
quantities of buys that we have in the budgets today and the projections
out of the last administration, we will end up with a force that is
almost 30 years old by the end of the next decade. If we want to turn
this around, quite honestly, we would have to buy aircraft at about a
rate of 170 a year. And we are only buying them today at about 100 a
year and half of those are very inexpensive trainers. Meanwhile, the
work load goes up and the mission capability of the aircraft goes down.
This is a critical issue for the U.S. Air Force for the future.
What we’ve tried to do operationally is take our legacy systems, the
ones that came out of the Cold War, and bring them forward into our
Expeditionary Aerospace Force concept in Vigilance, Reach and Power and
eventually get us to where we have a rapid aerospace dominant force, one
that can go rapidly anywhere in the world and dominate. But it is an
integrated force. Air and space together, getting the synergisms out of
that which we desperately need.
Just take a couple of the programs that we will categorize under
Global Vigilance where we try and anticipate and deter threats. Our
overhead systems—we’ll talk about them in a minute—and the need for
their revitalization. Combined with some new technology in our Global
Hawk—which we’ll bring on by the middle of this decade—to combine with
our U-2 force and our other capable systems that must be pushed up close
to give us the information that is terribly necessary to apply the force
in the right way. We must continue in the vigilance side to enable us to
have decision dominance.
On the Global Reach side, EELV—to get us more cheaply into space and
rapidly into space—is a maturing system that will come online in the
next few years. We are continuing to buy our C-17. We are looking to see
where we can go next in buys on the C-17 beyond the 134 that we
currently have on hand. Our reach-back capability, both in terms of
intelligence and operational matters in space, is an important segment
of our modernization program where we can not take as many people and
not as much equipment forward and reach back for that through very
robust comms. Some of our aging aircraft, we have revitalized over the
past few years to bring the 135s up from the E-model to the R-model.
Again, looking at our capability to rapidly deploy around the world, the
C-5 will continue to be an integral part of our Air Force. Right now,
the C-5's capability and mission capability rates are as low as they’ve
ever been. That is because that weapon system is also aging out.
We look on the power side—to prevail in these conflicts and to win
the wars when required. We have some futuristic systems that will help
us do that with things like investments in Space-Based Laser. And
looking at improving the capability of our U-2 fleet to do the
conventional bombing mission by putting smaller munitions on them,
500-pounders, where they can carry 80-plus bombs on a single sortie.
Making sure that we upgrade our F-15Es to put them into the fight where
they are linked. And indeed, to make sure the Joint Strike Fighter and
the F-22 come on line to replace this aging fleet that we have.
If you look at the tumble-down of what we are doing in
re-capitalizing on our space side, these are the kinds of systems that
we have today and are replacing other systems within launch and
communications and early warning and weather and navigation and indeed,
force application—looking at Space-Based Laser. We have those programs
fairly well funded in the next years. Our space programs are fairly
solid in their funding over the next five or six years. We have some
challenges beyond the FYDP on things we would like to do more robustly
as we go out into the future in space and transfer some missions from
the air side to the space side where it makes sense and where it works
better.
On the air side, we have done and are continuing to do the
modernization of the C-141 fleet. We are doing some modernization with
C-130Js to upgrade the capabilities of our C-130 fleet. As we go down
the list of requirements and phase them in, the next is to replace the
F-15, the number one front-line fighter that we have so that it is
capable well into the next century, and so on down into programs where
we will need to replace our tankers and our bomber force out there in
about a decade and a half.
If you look at where we are going with the F-22, I think it is
terribly important that everyone realize that this aircraft is
absolutely critical to operations that we’ll do in the future. John
Jumper will talk about a new concept that we have on how to employ this
aircraft along with other stealthy assets to come out of our AEF
structure as lead elements in the tough jobs. But today, if you look at
our F-15 versus modern fighters that are in production out there, both
in the grey world and then what I would call the "red world," we have a
tough time with the F-15 today in fighting that force, just from an
air-to-air side.
In the future, the F-22 would give us that dominance that we need
against almost any adversary. That is because we can take the
conventional fighter signature and reduce it, as we have on airplanes
like the F-16. But reduce it even further, to almost a bug splat on this
chart. What that gives us is an aircraft that has both air-to-air and
air-to-ground capability, a kick-down-the-door, first-in kind of
capability, both from a defensive and an offensive air superiority role.
That means it will do air defense of the ground and indeed sea forces.
It will protect our high-value assets that I talked about before they
must come up and get very close to the fight to feed us the information
we need. It can do the combat air patrols to clear the skies for our
bombers out in front. It can suppress the enemy air defenses and get
into places that no other aircraft can get into and deal a lethal blow
to surface-to-air systems. It can take our bombers and our fighters and
John will talk more about this later and make the battle space in which
they operate much safer so that we can have a force that continues to
prosecute the war, almost a pile-on force that allows us to do the job
we need to do and do it rapidly. It will give us freedom from attack and
freedom to attack and freedom to maneuver, which is terribly important
in the modernization of the force because it leverages our other
capabilities.
What we are looking for is to be able to have a force that is
protected and a force we can project. It is about being the most
advanced and most capable air force in the world. It is about attracting
people into this force of ours. It is about keeping those people. And it
is about fighting and winning America’s wars. That is what the United
States Air Force does. It is the best damned air force in the world and
I am proud to be part of it. It is great being with you today. Thank
you.
Q. When will we have sufficient pilots to bring their workload
to a reasonable amount? This has to do with crew chiefs and everyone
else.
General Ryan: On the pilot side, we currently have a deficit
of about 1,200 pilots against about a 13,000 requirement, close to 9
percent. We have projections that say we will start closing that gap
over the next few years. As we go to a point where we have laid in a
requirement for those signing up to stay with us for 10 years, the gap
will close and that will occur out in the 08/09 time frame.
We are going to have to live with a shortage of pilots over the next
few years, but not to the extent where we are crippled by it. Because
what we’ve done is made sure that all of the operational units continue
to be fully manned with pilots. What we’ve had to do is short the
headquarters. We’ve done some innovative things in hiring back those
who’ve retired who are still fairly current to do some very critical
jobs in the headquarters for us. And indeed, using some contractors, and
some of the guys here are involved in making sure that we keep our edge,
not just in the fighting force, but also our edge in the planning force.
We are currently short —not in numbers, but in capability—in crew
chiefs. We have about only 75 percent of the five level—five level being
the journeyman, the ones capable of doing work by themselves or training
others. About 75 percent of the need is for those personnel and those
are the ones that we put the greatest stress on. They are the first ones
that deploy. That are the ones that, while deployed, do the training.
And in fact, when they are deployed, they have the heaviest work load.
We are working very hard to bring on additional five levels through
training and through the school house, but we are limited in the number
we can get through the school house right now. But we continue to work
on it. We’ve seen over the past six months or so is that we are making
our recruiting goal, particularly in the mechanical side, which we were
worried about last year. We were able to get the kinds of people in that
will give us that capability for the future. Yes, we do have shortages.
Can we live with them? Yes. We hope for not too long.
Q. With the shortage of strategic airlift as identified in the
mobility requirement studies 05, when can the five Air National Guard
and Air Force Reserve wings that currently fly the 141—and really are
looking at a mission after 2006—be expected to receive replacement
aircraft?
General Ryan: We continue to look at how to use the great
expertise we have in the Guard and Reserve. They are critical to the
lift operation and indeed they are critical across our expeditionary
combat support and our combat forces. We have some units that will
not—if the program goes as it is today—be replaced with another aircraft
when the 141s go down. We are taking all of the 141s and replacing them
with half that number of C-17s. In those cases, there is no way that you
can divide the loaves and fishes here. They all end up in the same units
as they were before we started. Tony Robertson has been working very
hard in looking at schemes for the future.
If we can continue to buy the C-17—which we think is important to do,
and in the mobility side probably our number one requirement is to
continue that buy, and continue to modernize the force, there are ways
that we can make sure we continue to use the expertise of those units
who have the 141 and would be going out of that machine in the 06 time
frame. We are working those issues today.
Q. You spoke of aging weapon system. Isn’t there a similar
problem with aging bases? Utilities, water treatment, roads, buildings,
etc.?
General Ryan: Absolutely. In fact, we took a calculated risk
in how we funded our military construction programs and indeed our base
repair. During the time that we were challenged with these readiness
problems and the need to take care of our people, there was one area
that we thought we could take some risk. But you cannot do that for very
long. As I said before, we are currently on a recapitalization rate of
250 years, older than this nation of ours. We will have to address that
in these Quadrennial Defense Review studies that we do for the future.
What size of base structure do we need and how do we fund it to make
sure it is viable for the future? That will be one of the major topics
as we go into this strategic review.
Q. What is the future of UAVs in the Air Force and what are
your views on the utility of the Predator and then Global Hawk?
General Ryan: The U.S. Air Force, contrary to what is often
written in the press, is into UAVs in a big way. We have been for years
and years. If you look at each of our weapon systems that we have,
things like TALCMs and JASM and JDAM, those are, in effect, UAVs. They
allow our aircraft to stand off and the munition to penetrate. They are
just UAVs that don’t come back. There are lots of folks that would want
us to build very rapidly UAVs that come back and we have. We have built
the Predator, which has turned out to be a marvelous machine for us. It
proved itself both in Bosnia and Kosovo. It is daily in operations as we
speak today in the Gulf. It has been a very good machine for us and we
will continue to flesh out that capability and indeed upgrade it.
We are working currently on the Global Hawk to be an adjunct to the
U2 and, if we can get the kinds of capabilities we think we can get on
the air frame for the future, indeed a replacement for the U2 some time
out in the future. We are working on UCAV, an unmanned combat vehicle
that would have some niche places where we could use it, particularly
for those missions which are very high threat and where we would rather
not send a human if don’t have to. So, yes, we are deep into UAVs. Every
one of our satellites is a UAV. Every one of our missiles on our
aircraft is a UAV. And we’ll continue on this UAV journey we are on
where it makes sense, where it is reasonable, and where it is cost
effective.
Q. Referencing the space commission report, do you agree or
disagree with making CINC Space independent of the commander of Air
Force Space Command and NORAD? How will this decision impact the U.S.
Air Force’s role in space?
General Ryan: I support that recommendation. I think with a
unified CINC, if we can at all possible do it, we should unburden him
from having to also be a service component to himself. That takes relief
from Congress in the number of general officers that you would have, but
yes, I support that completely. Indeed, we in the Air Force support what
the Space Commission has put forward and are rapidly moving to implement
those things that we have control over. There are some that we don’t
have control over that we are going to need some help from Congress and
from the Administration to implement, so there is a conjoined nexus here
where the things that you do on one side of the ledger also play out on
the other side because if you look at the report, what was done at a
national and an NSC level and at an OSD level have to complement those
things that we do in the Air Force but we are moving out and trying to
do most of them in the next 90 days.
Q. What is your reaction to the recommendations of the Space
Commission on the issue of whether you think a space corps or service
becomes a certainty?
General Ryan: I do not think we need to go there...yet. If you
look at what we focus our space assets on today and indeed if you look
out 20 to 30 years at what is on the books and what is in the art of the
do-able, we do not see our space capability moving away from the
terrestrial need that we have. Indeed, it does not mean that we will not
have combat in space. I think that is more probable than it is not. In
fact, we need to be prepared for that for the future. But our space
force will continue to have an orbital piece to it. It will revolve
around integration of what happens in the air and on the ground and at
sea. And it will need to be an integral part of that. If there is combat
in space, it has to be connected to where humans live.
When would we go into a new space force? I think when we go
extra-orbital, that is, when commerce takes us or military need takes us
away from the confines of gravity of this earth and allows us to go out
interplanetary within the solar system or indeed beyond the solar
system. It is then that we should look at breaking off part of the Air
Force into a Space Force that is truly a space force and not just an
orbital force. It is terribly important that we don’t build too many
stove pipes in our militaries. We have worked terribly hard in the Air
Force to make sure that we bring in all of our capabilities from all of
our disparate parts and make them into a whole of one force, one family,
a real Air Force.
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