AFA National Symposium and
Annual Air Force Ball
November 19, 1999
General Michael E. Ryan
Chief of Staff, United States Air Force
National Symposium and Annual Air Force Ball
November 19, 1999
“Aerospace Domain”
It is great to see so many people here from
industry and the Air Force who have contributed so much to the
nation’s success in the field of aerospace. Your interest and
participation here underscores the high stakes that are involved with
the high ground. It is a pleasure to be with all of you this morning and
to discuss the lofty issues of aerospace integration. In the near future
we will publish our vision document entitled, “Beyond the Horizon:
Realizing America’s Aerospace Force.” It outlines where we’ve
been, but more importantly, where we are going, to ensure that we have
military predominance in the aerospace domain.
Our nation, both in the public and the
private sector, has an ever-growing interest and investment in
aerospace, and I expect the trend to continue. Consider the following:
The huge aerospace sales last year — DoD [Department of Defense], $42
billion; NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration], $12
billion; commercial, $54 billion. Space currently represents 25 percent
of the aerospace industry. The U.S. commands a third of the world’s
launch business, but under great competition from foreign competitors.
As a nation, our investment alone in space is truly astronomical. The
government-wide spending on space last year equaled $30 billion, and
that amount will be matched and surpassed by industry early in the 21st
Century. The Air Force represents a huge percentage of DoD’s aerospace
capability. We provide 90 percent of the space personnel, 82 percent of
the fixed-wing personnel, 85 percent of the space budget and 73 percent
of the fixed-wing budget, 86 percent of space assets and 75 percent of
fixed-wing assets, 90 percent of the space infrastructure and 78 percent
of the fixed-wing infrastructure. Each year, space systems and space
operations account for a growing share of the Air Force budget. It will
continue to grow. That will be both an opportunity and a challenge for
the U.S. Air Force.
The military implications of our evolving
dependence on space-based military activities are momentous. As the
former chief of staff, General [Thomas D.] White, said in 1957,
“Whoever has the capability to control space will likewise possess the
capability to exert control of the surface of the earth. We airmen who
fought to assure that the United States has the capability to control
the air are determined that the United States must win the capability to
control space.”
For our Air Force, I believe it is
important to project into the 21st Century the domain in
which we will have to operate and the missions and the dynamics that
domain will demand. It won’t be easy and it won’t be exact. Even
early aviation pioneers in the opening days of the 20th
Century would have had a difficult time predicting with great clarity
the evolution of aircraft to this point in the last few weeks of the
20th Century. However, many understood the implications of the
aeronautical domain. Freed from the fetters of terrestrial friction,
many saw the challenges, opportunities and payoffs of atmospheric flight
that were offered for both military and commercial innovators. I submit
that as the second half of the 20th Century has matured the
air realm, the first half of the next century will mature the aerospace
realm. The domain that it will encompass will be from the surface of the
earth to the most distant satellite or spacecraft.
There are those who would want to separate
the aerospace domain. It is a reverse oxymoron but they would want to
work space in a vacuum. But for me, that would be like separating the
mountains from the valleys or the oceans from the seas. It makes no
military sense, and for the foreseeable future, the aerospace realm will
remain earth-centric. Though we may explore, as we have in the past,
planets or other objects in our solar system, commercialization or
colonization of those bodies will have to wait for some time. It is not
that I am not a “trekkie” or an admirer of Jean Luc Piccard. I just
don’t see him in the next couple of generations. So, from a practical
sense then, I believe that the domain that demands the planning
attention is the aerospace domain. As my father said 30 years ago when
he was chief, “the aerospace domain is an expanding matrix for
deterrence and is the operational medium in which the Air Force must be
preeminent.” And I’ll add that is as true today as it was in 1970
when he was the AFA national convention speaker. The matrix is indeed
expanding.
For the Air Force, the aerospace domain
reaches from airborne to apogee, from lift-off to geosynchronous orbits.
Until human kind does go extra-terrestrial, until commercial and
military equities are beyond the earth’s orbital sphere, it is this
expanding matrix of the aerospace domain that will increasingly
influence not only the conditions of commerce, but the manner in which
mankind’s wars are fought.
I also believe that from a conceptual
standpoint in the military, we should think of the aerospace domain as a
seamless volume from which we provide military capabilities in support
of national security. Space is a place, not a mission. We must make
trade-offs of where best to invest that gives us the best capability to
fight and win America’s wars. We already provide intelligence,
surveillance, reconnaissance, weather, navigation, communications from
and through space. We in the Air Force must and have invested heavily in
the space segment of aerospace, where it makes military sense. Now and
in the future, we will continue to fund and integrate those capabilities
that contribute to military needs within the matrix, not within
stovepipes.
Operation Allied Force, the conflict in the
Balkans, illustrated our growing dependence on space-based assets. It
also highlighted the substantial progress we have already made in
integrating our aerospace force. Connecting our combat forces back to
the U.S. and other areas, reachback is one of our challenges. During
Allied Force, we took a number of steps to reduce sensor-to-shooter
timelines, fused intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance into
actionable knowledge for our commanders inside and outside our operation
centers. We merged aircraft data with overhead data to provide a
near-real time combat picture to the commander.
For the first time ever, we were able to
almost instantly calculate the precise coordinates required for our GPS
[Global Positioning System]-guided munitions for targets that were
identified with atmospheric UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles]. This
real-time targeting capability uses the data-fusion power of the Joint
Targeting Workstation. In less than one minute, Predator video data
could be combined with three-dimensional terrain data derived from
national satellites, then linked via satellite and data link to the
cockpits of combat aircraft flying into Kosovo and Serbia.
Our reliance on reachback, to the United
States and elsewhere, for information that supports our increased
requirement, will demand greater bandwidth than we have experienced in
the past. Just in this particular operation, we used five times as much
bandwidth as we used in Desert Storm. During Allied Force, we connected
40 different locations in 15 countries using a variety of military,
commercial and terrestrial pipes and leases interwoven with commercial
and military satellite communications. We installed 500 new DSN [Defense
Satellite Network] circuits, 50 new SIPRNET [Secure Internet Protocol
Router Network] and NIPRNET [Non-classified Internet Protocol Router
Network] connections. We worked over 44,000 spectrum requests, some
terrestrial, some atmospheric, some for space systems. And, as you may
know, these are very gnarly issues with our host countries. Our U-2s
flying out over Kosovo and Serbia sent their raw data directly back to
the United States. Through satellite communications, this reachback to
Beale Air Force Base allowed us to keep linguists and imagery analysts
at home station here in California. They used their specialized
equipment and collaborative intelligence links across the U.S. to turn
that raw data into finished information. It was then distributed back to
the theater commander.
Our advantage in space gives us a decisive
edge in the battlespace. It helped our targeting efforts. It helped with
weather prediction. It supplied much of our communications in and out of
the theater and guided our precision munitions with incredible accuracy
and much, much more. The Air Force is not the only U.S. military service
that is interested in space, just as we are not the only service that
operates aircraft. But we are the only military service that is involved
in the full spectrum of aerospace capabilities from inception to
airborne or [orbital] insertion, and we will continue to be the service
that integrates capabilities across the aerospace domain to assure that
we provide the best mix of synergistic capabilities, whether
earth-bound, airborne or orbital.
It isn’t just the military that has
become increasingly dependent on space. Those of you in industry are
similarly invested and will be increasingly so. That leads to another
truism. It is lonely in space if you are alone...and expensive. That is
why we in the Air Force must continue to partner in our efforts with
industry and NASA and the NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] and,
indeed, with other countries. As [Defense] Secretary [William S.] Cohen
recently said, in the revolution in space, no one nation can afford to
stand alone. So, while we will maintain the ability to act
independently, we will seek the benefits of cooperative action whenever
possible.
We are already partnering greatly with
industry. There are many examples. One of the most recent was an
experiment we did with our forward air controllers in the Balkans using
commercial satellite telephone systems. They phoned back to our command
and control nodes. The first test occurred last December and the forward
air controller dialed “911 Air Force” and received an immediate
close air support aircraft in his area. I think all of you know in this
room what close air support is. It is what the surface forces call for
when they are all out of “Hooah.”
Those partnerships may take on various
shapes and sizes. One partnership described by the Wall Street Journal
last September described Pizza Hut’s new pie-in-the-sky advertising
strategy, the beginning of a new advertising space race. Pizza Hut has
purchased the advertising rights to put a 30-foot logo on a Russian
Proton rocket which is set to launch the International Space Station’s
living quarters some time in the next few months. It kind of makes me
wonder whether you can get a free pizza if they don’t show up in 30
minutes.
As we both, military, commercial, civil
become increasing dependent upon space-based systems, we must be
prepared to protect those vital equities in space. Neither the military
nor the private sector can assume that our space-based capabilities will
be buffered from intentional degradation or be immune from attack. We
must develop the capabilities to know when our systems are under siege
and to defend our space-based systems as we do with those in the
atmosphere or on earth. We need also to be able to deny would-be enemies
the use of space capabilities--indeed, eventually, project power from
space.
The aerospace domain will be part of the
battlespace and must be integrated into how we fight. The Air Force core
competencies extend naturally through the aerospace domain. Aerospace
superiority always will be job one for us. Information superiority is
already dependent upon space access. Rapid mobility, global mobility and
global attack, precision engagement and agile combat support have
orbital applications, too.
What we pursue in space for the military
must be measured against its contribution toward fighting and winning
the nation’s wars. That is why we continue to fully integrate space
activities into our day-to-day operations across the Air Force. We have
MAJCOMs [Major Commands]. We have centers. We have NAFs [Numbered Air
Forces], we have wings that specialize in space operations. Space
operators already graduate from our weapons school. We have space
experts embedded through our warfighting organizations. They are
integral parts of our strategy and planning and execution cells under
our Air Force component commanders. They populate our staffs, giving us
expert advice on options and opportunities for the future. NASA and
other scientific organizations along with us will continue to explore
and push the aerospace frontier farther and farther out. Members of the
Air Force will take part in that effort, but today we have 50 Air Force
officers, astronauts and engineers supporting the effort at NASA on a
full-time basis. We need to cycle them back into our force to enrich our
reach for the future.
We are on a journey, combining and evolving
aerospace competencies into a full-spectrum aerospace force. In doing
so, we will remain loyal to our core purpose as a military institution,
to be a dominant fighting force and to guarantee the security of the
United States in peace and her victory in battle. Working together we
will make the Air Force stronger and provide a better defense for our
nation and for the next generations. Thanks for listening.
General Shaud: We have a certain
number of young people in the audience and this question is kind of from
them. What is the latest on the efforts to prepare our young officers to
become aerospace warriors?
General Ryan: We have several. Our
young officers, every one of them, will be required over--as we bring it
on--over the next couple of years, our Aerospace Basic Course, ABC. I
think that’s a great acronym for it, ABC, because it says from the
very beginning, no matter what job you go into in the United States Air
Force, you will be grounded in what we do in the aerospace realm. From
the very beginning, at least have that exposure so you don’t start
with a narrow look at the Air Force, but with a very broad look at the
Air Force. We are doing similar things with our enlisted force in our
basic training to expose them and through our tech schools. We will
continue that through the education process that we have in the Air
Force in squadron officer school and the war colleges and the command
and staff college. It is a focus of who we are and what we do in the Air
Force and I think we are institutionalizing it into our system.
General Shaud: As a follow on to
that question, with the continuous integration and fusion of air and
space, where and how do you see information warfare fitting into this
picture?
General Ryan: Information warfare
will operate at the tactical level, the operational level and at the
strategic level. We have just made a decision in part of information
warfare that Dick Myers now controls, and that is computer network
defense. We will move toward an offensive capability in that realm when
next year, October 1, Dick will also pick up computer network attack as
part of his mission as CINCSPACE. It pervades everything we do. Because
we are so dependent upon information, because information provides the
leverage of our force, now and into the future, we must be on top of
information warfare and it has really two parts: information warfare has
information in warfare--and that is how we collect, analyze, decimate
and turn facts into knowledge so that we become dominant in the decision
realm--and information warfare, how we protect and defend and attack
other’s information. It is two pieces and it is huge and it is not a
separate area because it falls into so much of what we do at the
operational, tactical and strategic level.
General Shaud: This takes another
sector, intel. Is the intelligence base sector also included in the
partnership?
General Ryan: Absolutely. I think
eventually we ought to do away with the word intelligence in
categorization of information. Information is so pervasive that it
covers intelligence, which is only one small part or could be expanded
to the whole of what we deal with in information. We need to expand our
officers’ focus, too. That is, I don’t think we can any longer have
officers who only work intelligence or who only work communications or
who only work information or who only work space systems. They must be
broad enough to pull all of those together to reach outside the
stovepipes and pull the information together in a way that it is
synergistic. We are working on that right now in what we call aerospace
leadership development and how we will crossflow our young officers at
the captain and major level into other fields so that they have an
appreciation and a broader view of how our Air Force fits together.
General Shaud: Would you support
funding for an extension of life of the C-141 beyond 2006?
General Ryan: We are still looking
at the mix we need for our mobility forces in the future. We have what
is called MRS [Mission Requirements Statement], the requirement MRS 05,
what the requirement is to support the two major regional contingencies.
That will be finished this next summer, and it will give us a basis for
making the decision of what our mix ought to be. We have increased our
buy already on the C-17 from 120 to 135. We are looking at re-engining
and regutting the C-5 into the future. The [C-]141C-models, which have
the glass cockpit, continue to have excellent capability, even for an
older system. We will have to look at that plus our mix with our C-130s
when we have the requirement study completed this summer, to make the
determination of how we will do that. But the option of extending the
C-141, particularly the C-model’s life, is not off the table.
General Shaud: The Air Force gets a
lot of help - from the Hill, from commissions and everything like that.
Having said that, as we are talking aerospace integration, will it help
deflect, in your view, some of the criticism and actually calls
sometimes for a separate space command?
General Ryan: I don’t know whether
it will deflect it or not. What is not clear to me is the answer to the
question, why would you want to do that? If the answer is to garner more
money for the space sector or provide more money for the aero sector,
then why don’t we just do that instead of adding another layer that
dis-integrates those functions, rather than integrates them. I’ve
never gotten a good answer to the question of why.
General Shaud: In your talk you
developed the things that were done, the showing of integration as we
worked Operation Allied Force. This question is a step beyond that. As
we were involved in combat in the skies over Serbia, is there anything
that we would like to do that is new conceptually with regard to the
integration of air and space?
General Ryan: I think that
conceptually I don’t think it is new, but from an actualization
standpoint, where you are able to engineer what your concept is--and
that is rapid reachback, rapid targeting, rapid dissemination of
information. If we can engineer that from the conceptual standpoint we
have it right now into the force. The use of information in warfare will
be the lever that will keep us dominant in the future. You can look at
our budgets and even look at all of our plans for modernization of the
force from EELV [Expendable Evolved Launch Vehicle], from our UAVs, from
our space-based systems and our atmospheric systems and indeed those
systems on the ground, and you will find that we will not change our
capital equipment radically over the next 15 years. We know over the
next 15 years just about where we will be if we execute every one of our
programs today that are on the books. What we don’t know, and what we
must work on, is how we tie them together to rapidly make decisions in
peacetime, crises and war. That will have to do with information
management, intelligence, and dissemination of the information to the
platforms that we know are going to be on the books in the next 15
years. So that is our challenge. It is the integration of those
capabilities in a rapid way that allows us to have decisive decisions.
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