AFA Policy Forum

The Honorable James G. Roche
Secretary of the Air Force
AFA National Symposium
Washington, D.C.
Sept. 17, 2003

Secretary Roche: Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be here. This is a very special occasion and I am delighted to have the chance to be here. I am thrilled to stand before you at the Air Force Association’s National Convention to share the dais with such great leaders as Secretary Norman Mineta, a fellow Annapolis resident, who I am sure is also worried about a girl named Isabel, as am I. I should tell those of you who know me, my boat is up, and if it goes, so does the house, so it won’t make much difference [laughter]. Also, we’ll be delighted to have our wonderful Vice President, Dick Cheney, who will be speaking to us in a little bit.

Both of these Americans are public servants in the most noble sense of the term. Each is a good friend of the United States Air Force. We are fortunate that they took the time to be with us today, given their very, very hectic schedules.

It is always a pleasure for me to accompany my partner and dear friend, General John Jumper, on any occasion. We have in the midst of turmoil, found humor wherever we could. We a long time ago decided that we would take our jobs very seriously, but not ourselves and in that we have the utmost cooperation of our wives, Ellen Jumper and Diane Roche, who have never taken either of us seriously at any time in our lives [laughter]. Only in this wonderful Air Force could I have a situation of inviting my bride of 42 years to join me at dinner with 6,000 of our closest sergeant friends in Las Vegas. And she said ok. That’s a new one. We’ve managed to have our anniversaries with the sergeants for a couple of years and it is really quite wonderful.

John Jumper is more than just a friend. He is a consummate military officer. He is a consummate American. He is one of those people who could have done well no matter what occupation he chose. That he chose to serve his country for all of these years, well into 30 years, is something of which we should be very proud. He often doesn’t get people to just honestly say he is quite a guy. But, he is quite a guy and I always enjoy the chance to salute him.

Let me also offer my thanks and congratulations to the assembled leadership of the Air Force Association. This week is always a highlight of the Air Force year and it takes an awful lot of sweat to make it happen. From your recognition of our Outstanding Airmen and teams to the thoughtful symposia you’ve sponsored, the Air Force Association’s charter to increase public understanding of air and space power is invaluable to those of us on active duty, in the Pentagon and throughout the Air Force. Thank you for your strong advocacy of our efforts to recapitalize and modernize the Air Force. You inform, you advocate and through the Aerospace Education Foundation, you help to educate and inspire the next generation of aerospace pioneers. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Most important, I offer my sincere thanks for your support of our airmen and their families. The active, Guard, Reserve and civilian airmen who populate our total force team are buoyed by your tireless efforts. Through your work, they understand the issues of the day and have gained an appreciation of our storied traditions and heritage. For all these reasons and for your sponsorship of this historical gathering of international leaders, I offer my sincere congratulations.

I would like to pass on a very special welcome to the global air chiefs, the representatives of many nations around the world, with whom we fly and from whom we always learn a great deal. We’ve been honored to welcome you to our nation’s capital this week and to open the doors of this great city to you and your spouses. On this special occasion, as you know, General Jumper has scheduled a hurricane so that you might understand what that is like, too, and to enhance the excitement and make this a most memorable trip to the Washington, DC area.

It is a pleasure for me personally because I have a chance to see a number of old friends whom I have admired for many, many years and it is just a delight to spend a little time with them and also to make new friends. So thank you for coming.

As we celebrate the achievements of the past year, we recognize there is a common language of airmen and a bond that transcends our nation’s borders. The world is shrinking through the power of ideas and our shared values. Just as the dreams of two bicycle-makers launched us into a century of innovation and exploration, the air forces of our nations will continue their vision into the next century and will be an instrument to spread the promise of freedom. So, again, I thank each and every one of you for being with us this week.

A year ago today, I addressed this audience just after the first anniversary of the events of September 11th. Last year, our airmen were diligently patrolling the skies of Northern and Southern Iraq, on watch to catch an occasion Iraqi MIG crossing the boundary into the UN-mandated no-fly zones. Our airmen were stationed en mass at Incirlik and Prince Sultan air bases. We were aggressively developing intelligence on Al Qaeda around the globe and hunting their leadership. Last year, when I spoke, we were proudly reporting on the results of our first offensive battle in the global war on terrorism, the battle of Afghanistan.

Only a few months later, our nation would again engage in another major combat operation. More than 50,000 airmen would deploy to expeditionary bases throughout Southwest Asia, plus those on aircraft carriers and on bases in the region. We would fly over 70,000 strike, reconnaissance and mobility sorties in conflict. By the way, 43,000 of those 70,000 sorties were cargo aircraft. Close to 10,000 were tanker sorties. It just shows what modern war at great distances requires.

Our footprint around the world would evolve substantially, with new bases and renewed relationships growing in importance. Our Air Force has proven remarkably flexible in adapting to these new demands. That is a testament to our expeditionary operating concepts as well as the airmen who have adopted this mind-set as the norm, rather than the exception. John and I are fond of pointing out that sailors go to sea and American airmen live in tents.

You’ve heard many leaders this week discuss the successes in Iraq. You recall how our joint and coalition air and space forces blanketed the entire region with an umbrella of air dominance, enabling maritime forces and the ground components to operate without fear of attack from the skies. You’ve heard stories of the airmen, who, in the tradition of Doolittle’s raiders, developed new B-1 bomber tactics and brought precision firepower to bear against Iraqi leadership targets in minutes.

We’ve celebrated the flexibility of air power and the capability of our global mobility forces to adapt to the exigencies of coalition operations and conduct the largest combat airborne insertion of forces since D-Day at Normandy.

At AFA this week, we’ve saluted the airmen who have demonstrated the precision, flexibility and speed of air and space power. They certainly reflect the humanity and discipline of our airmen, their commitment to coalition operations, their sense of excellence and, above all, their courage in combat. The foundation of our success can be found in two simple concepts―teamwork and trust. This was truly a joint and coalition warfighting effort from planning to execution. Air, ground, maritime and space forces, working together at the same time for the same objective, not merely staying out of each other’s way, but orchestrated to produce a decisive outcome. And when our ground forces engaged with the enemy, they trusted that our airmen would be there, either in advance of their attacks, or in support of their assaults. And we were there.

History will judge how well we sustain these accomplishments. We can feel good about the accomplishments of our colleagues, but we can’t be complacent. There are still many areas where we need to improve. General Buzz Moseley whom you heard this week has been quite vocal in his concerns over the responsiveness of the battle damage assessment process and how traditional concepts of BDA need to be re-evaluated in the current era. General Jumper made the same point yesterday and, based on my own research on the combined-bomber operations in World War Two, I have argued the case for improved BDA ever since the early 1980s. It is simply essential for rapid decision-making.

We need to make the system as dynamic and responsive as our ability to strike. Anything less undermines the inherent deterrence and compelling effects air power brings to our warfighting team.

We also can be proud of how space was integrated into the fight. The designation of a space coordinating authority was a success and proved invaluable. We now need to accurately analyze the lessons we learned from this effort and then codify those roles into our doctrine. We need to make sure that we have the right staffing in the coalition air operating centers to support space missions, such as space control, and we need a space common operating picture, not a series of PowerPoint slides representing one.

Of great concern to me was our difficulty in detecting and defending against air-breathing land-attack missiles. I have spoken and written of the emerging cruise missile threat for two decades. And it is emerging, albeit slowly. I need to point out that Iraq killed 17 US sailors in 1987 with air-launched, anti-ship cruise missiles. Sixteen years later, we witnessed the Iraqis shoot six Sear-SOCOM missiles, which are modified anti-ship Silkworm missiles, into Kuwait. The cruise missile threat is one we must be prepared to meet in the future. And it is one of the reasons why John and I have modified the design of the systems onboard the F/A-22 so as to make it a very good system against such an attack.

Also, as General Jumper has pointed out many times, we need to ensure our air and space systems are talking to each other so we can integrate information at the machine-to-machine level and produce high fidelity intelligence that results in what he calls a cursor over the target. Currently, we have too many obstacles and cultures in the way of achieving this vision, but we are working at it, day by day, and we’ll get there.

Finally, we need to focus much more and now on what we can do to help our American and allied troops on patrol in Iraq day after day, night after night, standing or going into harm’s way. There are troopers standing, riding or walking into harm’s way as we meet this morning. With all our brains, with all our technology, what are we doing to ensure that each soldier or Marine finishes his or her patrol duty safely? What are we doing in this phase of the war to watch the six o’clock of those on the ground? Where is the predictive battle space analysis for that patrol? And we must keep in mind that our ground component partners are not the only ones in harm’s way. Air Force airmen are running convoys from air bases in Iraq to Baghdad and they are patrolling outside the perimeters of our bases. They face the same dangers as our allied, Marine and Army brethren. Together, these young people are the cutting edge of our coalition’s military power in Iraq today. They deserve our attention and they deserve our support. John and I are dedicated to looking at every bit of technology our Air Force has to see what we can bring to bear to ensure that every patrol comes back safely.

Just as we have drawn these combat lessons, there are powerful lessons we must draw from the events and trends of the past four months. We have witnessed major bombings, not of coalition targets in Iraq, but against those whose principle objectives are the introduction of institutions and values that support a free Iraq. The carnage of the bombings against the United Nations’ Headquarters in Baghdad and the Holy Temple in Najif, confirm the persistent threat posed by those who oppose freedom and tolerance. The rising insurrectional alliance between radical Islamic groups and the Baathists will prove to be yet another front in our war on terror. The re-emergence, albeit small, of the Taliban in Afghanistan and its politics of assassination and the expanding presence of terror groups in Morocco, Yemen, Indonesia and other locales, remain a persistent threat to the values we all cherish.

These imperatives demand our action. They demonstrate beyond any doubt the truth of President Bush’s oft-stated belief that this will be a very, very long fight. To prevail, we must stay the course. Our enemies will test our collective commitment. We must bolster the resolve of our citizens and those nations around the globe, which share our love of freedom. We must continue to invest in the capabilities that will allow us to prevail in conflict, whether in major conventional war or the asymmetric battles we increasingly face these days.

That is why in the Department we are committed to pursuing innovations, capabilities, adaptations that will help us win the fights of today and tomorrow. As airmen, we have been evolving rapidly since the first Gulf War, with the sole objective of improving our ability to generate overwhelming and strategically compelling effects from air and space. It is our heritage to adapt and we will continue to do so.

We will continue to pursue innovative strategies and evolve our doctrine to capture the best practices that work in today’s asymmetric world. For instance, the use for the first time of the air component coordinating element, led by Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf, with the ground forces commander, was an idea that grew from the lessons learned in Operation Enduring Freedom, from a very quiet seminar held by Army and Air Force officers that General Shinseki and General Jumper organized. As I have mentioned many times, our air and ground components work together marvelously and in the tradition of Generals Arnold and Patton, used a combination of our capabilities to great effect on the battlefield.

For instance, agile organizations help us prevail against new enemies. Task Force 20, the Joint Special Forces team that own the battle for Western Iraq, and the 86 Contingency Response Group, the Air Force Team that was first into Tajikistan and jumped into Northern Iraq, are the kinds of teams we have in mind. We must shift from threat and platform-centric thinking to capabilities and effects-based thinking, so many of which are based on the sorts of people we have, we develop, we nurture and we retain.

While we are making progress in adapting the Armed Forces and our Air Force to these new challenges, we can do better. We must remember that we do not have a patent on progress. Progress and technology belong to those who act. Advantage in warfighting goes to the nation or, in the case of the current world environment, to the group that figures out how best to use that technology to advance their cause. The increasing proliferation of advanced surface-to-air missile systems will threaten our ability to gain and maintain air dominance. Manned, portable surface-to-air missiles have proliferated extensively and tactical ballistic missile technology is spreading, as you know. An advanced fighter has already been produced that is superior to our best current generation legacy fighters. It will not be better than that which is coming and it will be dramatically inferior to the F/A-22.

The threats to our information, communication and computing systems are increasing. There are instances where our industrial capacity is being leveraged much more by other nations―our friends―and not for the benefit of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. We must recapitalize.

That is why Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is so intent on continuing to transform our armed forces. In the Air Force, we will continue to pursue innovations that create new capabilities from legacy systems. We don’t fly the B-52 the way it was originally designed to be flown, but we can certainly modify systems that still make the B-52 a remarkably effective weapon system. The addition of targeting pods on the B-52 or the integration of real-time video from Predator, our remotely piloted aircraft, to our AC-130 gunships, and even to some of our special operators on the ground and our recent adaptation of the B-2 Bomber that General Jumper announced yesterday. 80 GPS-guided weapons dropped from a single B-2 and every weapon hit within 10 feet of its intended target from over 35,000 feet and 10 miles away. By the way, to give the point that we are making progress on machine-to-machine integration, it took less time to target these 80 weapons than the usual eight hours it takes us to target 16 JDAMs, because we use machine-to-machine target data transfer algorithms and proved it could be done.

Many of you, I’m sure, will recall the impressive post-strike imagery of Serbian air fields in Operation Allied Force that were rendered unusable due to multiple precise strikes from a single B-2 bomber using a unique fore-runner to the JDAM. The B-2 now gives us the capability to hold hostage five times the number of targets from a single airplane and a single sortie, while at the same time reducing collateral damage by employing a 500-pound warhead instead of a 2000-pound warhead.

It is not just equipment. In our acquisition world, we are making progress as well in getting stability to our programs and stability is so essential for reliability and for lowering costs. We’ve stabilized production of C-17, buying 60 planes for the previous cost of 56. Stable production in the F/A-22 program is also starting to produce savings. Earlier this year, we exercised an option with Lockheed Martin adding one F/A-22 to the Lot 3 contract, increasing our buy to 21 airplanes for the price of 20. We are able to make this happen through gains in supplier confidence, which led to reduced costs. With 65 percent of aircraft costs associated with over 1,400 suppliers in 46 states, a firm commitment to program stability is absolutely essential to create conditions where suppliers view efficiency gains as a path to increased orders.

Meanwhile, even as we manage the transition to production challenges of the F/A-22, we continue to adapt the Raptor to the era in which we find ourselves. General Jumper and I announced the new designation of the system at last year’s AFA convention. Some folks commented at the time that it was all marketing fluff. Well, I’d like to argue that those people are about as accurate as the combat dispatches of Baghdad Bob at the Iraqi Information Ministry. The F/A-22 has changed in major ways, with its suite of avionics, the development of new weapons and an enhanced, active, electronically scanning antenna radar. We are transforming the world’s greatest air dominance fighter into the world’s supreme multi-role attack system, one that is nearly invisible to the enemy and one able to hold hostage virtually any target, no matter how heavily defended, no matter how deep in enemy territory. And, it will be the only system especially effective against mobile targets and against land-attack cruise missiles.

Let me echo the comments of my partner John from yesterday. The F/A-22 is a capability that is moving to the field now. The last of eight operational test aircraft arrived at Nellis Air Force Base just two weeks ago and I was delighted to hear that we actually had seven in the air at one time maneuvering. The first pilot training aircraft will be delivered to Tyndall Air Force Base later this month. We are focusing now on preparations for a successful operational test, although we know when we go into operational tests we’ll learn other things. These are very advanced systems and it is the purpose of operational tests. Some things will have to be fixed and changed. We are expanding the flight envelope. We are integrating weapons. We are improving our maintenance processes. Our avionics and software stability are improving significantly as well. We remain confident that when this aircraft is fielded in numbers and the combatant commanders learn of its incredible capabilities, we will produce as many as we need to ensure our nation’s continued security. That is a decision for the future.

These are only a few examples of how we are adapting. From remotely-piloted aircraft, which rely on the judgment of pilots to attack and not pre-programmed algorithms, and the future E-10A battle management system to our new CAOCs and smart tankers, we are transforming our forces. It is what Secretary Rumsfeld challenged us to do and I am proud to report that our uniformed, civilian and industry airmen are making it happen. As we think about the challenges we face as a nation, our focus should be on those enduring sources of strength to give us the advantages we enjoy today, in warfighting, technology, biomedical capabilities in space, economics, among many others.

There is a growing body of thought that our defense strategy, absent a peer competitor, should be based on understanding and exploiting our inherent strengths, our comparative advantages, a strategy predicated on the idea that if we accurately assess our comparative advantages and strengths, we can invest in them to yield high rates of military return and over time we can manage portfolios of competencies that will help us to exploit our own asymmetric advantages well into the future, regardless of the type of contingencies with which we will have to deal because we will approach all of them from the point of view of our strengths and not allow an opponent to shape them.

In the Air Force we very much share this view. Throughout our comparatively short but distinguished history, a birthday we will celebrate tomorrow, we have remained the best at what we do because, first and foremost, of our professional airmen, our investment in warfighting technology and our ability to integrate our people and systems together in new and innovative ways. These Air Force core competencies are the foundation that will ensure we are prepared for the unknown threats of an unknown future. They will ensure our joint forces will continue to have the tools they need to maintain a broad and sustained advantage over any emerging adversaries. We must invest in education, training and leadership development. We need to prepare every member of our force― officer, enlisted and civilian―with experience, assignments and broadening that will allow them to succeed when we ask them to do the worthy work of our service.

This is even more important when our airmen interact in the joint arena, whether as an air liaison officer to a ground maneuver element or as a space advisor to the Joint Force commander, these competencies are the source of our enduring strength.

When I came to the Air Force over two years ago, I said I would use as a measure of progress substantive improvements by the Air Force leadership team in four principle categories. First, in adapting strategy, doctrine and concepts of operations appropriate for a new era of threats to our nation’s security. Second, to fight the fights for capabilities, benefits and improvements that supports our airmen, their families and their ability to accomplish their missions. Third, by gaining efficiencies in how we do the business of the Air Force. And finally, in taking concrete measures to increase innovation in our industrial base. I believe we have made substantial progress in meeting each of these objectives. This is not because of me. Not even because of John Jumper and me. But because of the broader leadership team of the Air Force, especially our four-star leaders, our three-star leaders all the way down.

Our work isn’t done and we know that. Whether or not I am confirmed by the Senate and depart to serve as the Secretary of the Army, our wonderful Air Force must stay this course. Should I become the Secretary of the Army, you can all rest assured that I will bring forward the great lessons and best practices I have learned from so many airmen throughout the Air Force, especially my partner. And that I will devote much of my energy to seeing the promise of air-ground collaboration realized in ways that will continue to make Generals Patton and Arnold proud.

As we join this week and later at Kitty Hawk to celebrate the centennial anniversary of our powered ascent into the skies, we more fully grasp the increasingly vital role our Air Force plays in helping to defend our nation, assure our friends and allies, and win our wars. In terms of its effects on society, commerce and exploration, Bill Gates captured the contributions of powered flight best when he said the Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. From a man in a company that has created another cultural force of global magnitude, we can all be proud of what we do as airmen, serving the cause of freedom.

At this point, I’d like to remind us all that this is the Centennial of Flight. And if you’ll join with me for about 60 seconds, I’ll show you something we have been trying to do as a reminder to everyone that this is a special year. Please roll the video.

The 30 second PSA:

The 60 second PSA

What a wonderful Air Force public affairs and marketing team. I always want to get in a plug. They’ve done well once again.

Congratulations to the Air Force Association for a great event, to the award winners here today for your great achievements, and to every airman present for your continuing contributions to this nation and the free world.

Happy birthday, United States Air Force. May God bless each and every one of you who are here with us today.

Q: We have a couple of questions for you from the audience. Could you give us an update on the status of the 767 tanker program?

Secretary Roche: You will recall that two years ago we started this proposal to see if we could make up for some lost time. We recognized that the KC-10s were acquired when the KC-135 fleet was about 17 years ago and those 60―now 59―KC-10s have proven invaluable, especially to our colleagues in Navy and Marine Corps aviation and to our coalition partners. Our fleet of KC-135s is now 43 years old. The E-model is 44 years old. And we wanted to jump-start this. It is a difficult thing to do. It is complicated. We have a proposal that has been viewed and vetted and is different and we are currently in discussions with the Senate Armed Services Committee to see if this is something that is within the do-able. But ladies and gentlemen, this has always been an out-of-the-box approach to this problem. We’ve always called it Plan B. Plan A was to do the normal acquisition. The difference is time and money. We believe that the risk of being so dependent on 544 rather old aircraft of a single type was something we did not want to face in an era when we are doing so much so far from our land while at the same time having to maintain tankers over the United States as part of Project Noble Eagle. We are mindful that those tankers also served NATO AWACS, where Europeans wonderfully gave of their time to help our country out for almost nine to eleven months right after 9/11. So, this is something that we are continuing to work on and we may be able to find something that is acceptable to the Congress. That is what democracy is all about. But I think in the process we have been able to make the case that this is a need that needs to be addressed and will be addressed―we are only talking about the modality of how it is addressed.

Q: While talking about acquisition, how do you see us proceeding toward a follow-on bomber, like the F/B-22?

Secretary Roche: The long-range strike system that we have discussed is really a long-range strike technology program. Here, John Jumper and I agree that we are in a position now where in this area we are getting tremendous multiplier effects both by weapons and by integration. But it is also interesting to us, when we look at the Iraq conflict, that of the 70,000 sorties, only 576 were bomber sorties. Our Air Force adapts to the contingency based on the needs of the contingency, we don’t try and shape the world to meet our capabilities. It is not like going around with a wrench, hunting for a pipe that the wrench fits. We have to deal with the pipes we find. But we are agile enough to be able to do that so that in Afghanistan, the leading edge of our Air Force were our combat controllers on the ground. In Iraq, it was working with ground forces. It was in fact having four areas of operations, as General Moseley points out. It was doing things different. Right now, a massive amount of mobility aircraft are being used, not just to get to the theater, but also within the theater. We are developing various technologies and alternatives for long-range strike over a period of time. We have off-ramps on that path. If, for some reason, we need to do that more quickly, we’ll look to the F/B-22. But we are also considering very novel ideas, based on what we’ve learned. We are a very highly adaptive force.

As we talk to our four-star colleagues at Corona, we think through what other notions there ought to be. For instance, should we have very large, remotely piloted aircraft, which contain a portfolio of weapons that are at the beck and call of our ground air controllers, our ETACs, our FACs, our combat controllers, so that we lighten the load not just of the backpack that these young men carry―and we are doing remarkable there by the way; our goal is to get two-thirds of the weight off their knees―but give them enormous firepower? Or allow a ground combat unit of our Army, or Marines or coalition partners to have available to them this system in the sky that stays with them as they go? That would be another concept. Where do unattended vehicles, but remotely piloted vehicles fit in? Then there are some very long-range technologies. Right now it is a technology development program. But because of the accuracy of weapons, because of things like General Jumper’s announcement yesterday on the B-2 and because of integration, we are able to make use of systems in ways we never have done before. The fact that we have bright people taking systems and playing with them replicates part of our history in the late 1930s, where industry was cranking out various airplanes and models and it was bright Army Air Corpsman who figured out ways to make good use of them.

I am just amazed at how we have gone in the period of less than 30 months from people thinking the B-1 bomber was the biggest turkey on any airbase anywhere to now it is one of the pride and joys of our Air Force. Ladies and gentlemen, transformation is changing how you think, not necessarily junking what you’ve got, but adapting what you have in new and innovative ways. In the case of the B-1, plowing money into its systems, getting it operational, recognizing it is a standoff system. Getting that fuel bladder the hell out of one of the bomb bays, learning to fly with the wings out straight, fly a little higher, a little slower. These provided a tremendous combat system. We then give it to our airmen like Buzz Moseley and he creates a system of staking planes with canonical loads that are available on call and we develop new doctrine. We are in good shape in this field. We know what to do. We also believe that in the future, the economies of scale of a bomber, which were required in order to ensure a target was destroyed, are not nearly as important when every weapon basically is an assured hit. But what is going to happen is there are going to be more targets that are mobile. There is going to be more of a distributed target base and we are fiscally going to have to be in more places at one time, which may mean smaller aircraft which leads to F/A-22s, possibly F/B-22s. That part of our Air Force is in great shape.

Q: As we know, we are fighting much more closely with our sister services. Do you see more integration in our acquisition processes across the services?

Secretary Roche: That is a terrific question. We’ve tried sort of gentlemen’s agreements and in some cases they have worked out well. John and I have both been frustrated that some times what our dear older brother―he is not older than I am, but I always like to think he is―Mike Ryan used to point out is the “acquisition tyranny.” The acquisition tyranny sometimes listens to chiefs of staff and secretaries and goes, “yes sir, yes sir,” walks out and says, “well, he’ll be gone some time.” When you are going to talk about two acquisition tyrannies, it gets a little tougher, but it is probably the right way to think. I am very proud of my partner for so many reasons, but one of them is that he sometimes captures concepts very succinctly. For instance, we will never fight alone. This is a simple expression that has so many second and third order consequences and is so meaningful for what we acquire, the doctrine we develop. The other is, we were chatting one day and he turned to me and said “I increasingly believe that the very long-term strategy of the United States Air Force is intrinsically related to the long-term strategy of the American Army.” I think he is right. How we think about that, how we have strategic operations, how we work together is something we should continue to foster and there may be some cases where having acquisition systems working in common as compared to a lead service might be the way to go.

Q: Probably the toughest question―when Army plays Air Force later this year, which side are you going to sit on?

Secretary Roche: I will allow the United States Senate to make that determination.