AFA Policy Forum

The Honorable Peter B. Teets
Acting Secretary of the Air Force
General John P. Jumper
Chief of Staff, USAF

Air Warfare Symposium - Orlando
February 17, 2005

[ click here for a printer-friendly version ]

Secretary Peter B. Teets: I'm pleased to be here and be with all of you. I think it's a vitally important time in the history of our Air Force, and I can't tell you how proud I am of being able to serve as Acting Secretary at a time when we're facing some challenges, but we have this wonderful leadership in our Chief of Staff, General John Jumper. I'm honored and pleased to be able to serve with him.

I also want to thank you, [AFA Executive Director Donald L. Peterson], and [AFA Chairman of the Board] Pat Condon as well for all you do for our Air Force through the Air Force Association. It's a wonderfully strong organization and one that has supported our Air Force for a great number of years. As [General Peterson] mentioned, I am a life member of the Air Force Association and real pleased to be because we need your help for certain as we go forth into this uncertain future that we're dealing with.

I also want to just real quickly mention some other retired Air Force four stars who are here this afternoon and say a special thanks to them.

I know General Joe Ashy, former Commander of U.S. Space Command is here. Can we have a little applause for Joe? [Applause]

General Jack Gregory, former Commander of Pacific Air Force. [Applause]
General Dick Hawley, former Commander of Air Combat Command. [Applause]
General Fig Newton, former Commander of Air Education and Training Command. [Applause]
And General Charles Robertson, former Commander of AMC. [Applause]

Thanks to all of you for all you've done for our Air Force and for the United States of America.

Just over two weeks ago now, President Bush said, "The state of our union is confident and strong." Today I am pleased to report you that the state of our Air Force is confident and strong.

We confidently face a wide variety of threats—ballistic and cruise missiles; chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons; advanced surface-to-air missiles and sophisticated combat aircraft. These are wielded by non-state actors as well as established nations, rebels as well as immigrant insurgents, independent as well as state-sponsored terrorists.

As a strong part of the joint force, we fight alongside our sister services, interagency partners, friends and allies to protect this nation and defend freedom around the world.

With that in mind, I'd like to talk to you about what we bring to the fight, about what we're doing with our missions and our commitments and our capabilities. General Jumper will follow immediately with his perspective on where we're headed. Then we'll take questions together at the end.

Our Airmen are the fundamental reason that we have the greatest air and space force in the world. Their dedication, their professionalism and talent are unmatched. This I know for a fact is due in part to the great work that former Secretary Jim Roche and General Jumper have done over just the last few years in developing Airmen, our first core competency.

It might be said that developing Airmen is too basic to be a core competency because it's inherent in our mission, we have to do it. But that's kind of a limiting viewpoint. Developing Airmen is our first core competency not because we have to do it, but because we've chosen to do it extremely well. Our technical training is second to none. We emphasize professional education at every stage of every Airman's career and we offer tremendous opportunities for growth and development, all of which pays off in mission success.

As part of a powerful joint team, our Airmen defended the air sovereignty of North America in Operation Noble Eagle; broke the Taliban's stronghold on Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom; and overthrew Saddam Hussein's corrupt regime in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As those operations continue, Airmen put their lives on the line every day, conducting counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, pursuing al-Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan and patrolling the skies over our great nation.

We ended 2004 with nearly 31,000 Airmen in Southwest Asia, including 5,000 Air National Guardsmen and 2,500 Air Force Reservists flying over 200 sorties a day over Iraq and Afghanistan. To date, they've flown over a quarter of a million sorties for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, close air support, aerial refueling, aeromedical evacuation and airlift. And that's just in the theater.

Daily Air Force operators in Nevada remotely pilot Predators over Iraq. Space professionals keep constant vigil over the global battlespace here at home. Reserve, Guard and active duty pilots fly air defense missions for homeland defense.

And we've branched out from our traditional roles. Today, when people talk about boots on the ground, many of those boots are worn by Airmen. Perhaps the most obvious examples are our Battlefield Airmen. We introduced this group to you last year. These Airmen are extremely versatile. Consider this. During March and April of 2004, Air Force tactical air control parties were involved in some of the coalition's heaviest fighting in Iraq. But recently, their missions are as likely to involve aerial surveillance of suspect terrorists or bringing in an F-15 as a show of force, as actually directing bombs and bullets onto a target.

In addition to combat, Battlefield Airmen have handled everything from monitoring school construction in Iraq to training Iraqi forces on terminal air control techniques to directing close air support top cover for Army maneuvering units during the historic Iraqi elections.

In addition to Battlefield Airmen, at the end of last year the Air Force was filling over 1,900 positions in 16 different combat support skills for the United States Army. The most visible role has been in combat convoys, unique small unit operations that require exceptional leadership, teamwork and tactical skill.

Our Airmen are up to the task, as members of the 447th Air Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron showed in March of last year. Driving in a joint Army/Air Force convoy north of Baghdad, they came under small arms fire. Several convoy members were wounded. Two Airmen First Class, Sheena Watkins and Raoul Mexicano, immediately opened fire with their turret guns. They covered other squadron members as they got into position and together they quickly put down the attack. Sadly, one soldier died from enemy fire, but the toll could have been much worse if not for their quick thinking, superb training, and excellent teamwork.

While conducting homeland defense and prosecuting the global war on terror, our dedicated Airmen also are busy elsewhere in the world. Airmen stationed in South Korea along with soldiers, sailors, marines and South Korean allies bring regional stability and deter aggressors. In the Balkans, Airmen help NATO enforce peace accords and they have flown over 27,000 sorties in NATO-led operations Joint Forge and Joint Guardian. For 15 years we've fought against illegal drug trafficking alongside the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and we've continued our tradition of humanitarian missions. We delivered 120 tons of relief supplies in the first few days after the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Airmen of the 33rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron saw first-hand the need, the resilience and the gratitude of the tsunami victims. Flying in their HH-16 Pave Hawk helicopters to deliver supplies to Potaville, a small town right on the ocean of Sri Lanka's east coast, they estimated that seven out of every ten buildings were completely destroyed, washed away. The rest were heavily damaged.

They landed safely in a field covered with debris. Along one side of the field, power lines had been stripped from their poles, but on their second flight in, the power lines weren't on the ground any more. The Sri Lankans had repaired them with our help in less than three hours.

One Airman, Master Sergeant Keith Kolb, particularly remembered a boy who had tried to follow him into the helicopter. He was about 12 years old and tried to look strong, even though he was on the verge of tears. Before aid workers led him away, the boy shook Sergeant Kolb's hand for a few seconds, then grabbed his hand and kissed it. It was one of a hundred gestures of gratitude our Airmen will never forget.

We accomplish all of these extraordinary missions under the Air and Space Expeditionary Force concept, which lets us organize, train and sustain the Total Force in a systematic, effective and efficient manner. We've found that despite deployments and hardships, Airmen are satisfied with their work, their missions, and their accomplishments. Our Airmen live the Air Force core values—integrity first, service before self, excellence in all we do.

Our Airmen take great care of their Air Force and they trust the Air Force to take great care of them. The best evidence of this [is that] generally they don't want to leave the service. Last fiscal year, for instance, we decreased our accession goals by approximately 3,000 and still ended up over our congressionally authorized end strength.

As President Bush said in his State of the Union Address when talking about all service members, "We have given them training and equipment and they have given us an example of idealism and character that makes every American proud."

I certainly am very proud of our Airmen and I know you are, too. [Applause]

When it comes to the fight, though, our Air Force and all our modern armed services depend on technology. That's why transitioning technology to warfighting is another of our core competencies in the Air Force.

To move technology to warfighting, we apply the capabilities-based approach to war planning and force development. Instead of focusing on what platform we might build, we examine what battlespace effects the joint warfighter needs and then what capabilities will deliver those effects.

We codified this approach in the Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment process, which provides an operational-, capabilities- and risk-based focus for investment decisions. Those investments produce the technologies which provide the capabilities which produce the battlefield effects. We use seven different operational concepts to examine our needs and forge our capabilities. Let me hit a few high points of some of these concepts.

Under the Global Mobility Concept, we project, employ and sustain U.S. power in support of our global interests. We usually think of that in terms of military power, but our airlift fleet also helps us project moral power. Last July 4th, coalition Special Operations Forces conducted Operation Independence to drop humanitarian supplies into Afghanistan. They delivered school supplies for more than 30 classrooms; Afghanistan flag stickers to help build national pride; and more than 500 portable hand-cranked radios so locals could receive impartial news about the upcoming elections. The goods were delivered at night, precisely on target from an MC-130 Talon. It was all part of a coordinated effort to improve Afghani quality of life and another flight toward a democratic Afghanistan.

The Mobility Capabilities Study should be released soon and will baseline future wartime airlift requirements and feed into our capabilities-based planning process.

Another key to Global Mobility is aerial refueling and our tanker fleet, as you know, isn't getting any younger. We're working with the Department of Defense and the Congress to analyze alternatives and find the right solution for the Air Force and for our nation.

Global Mobility gets us there. With Global Strike, we apply combat power. Our primary modernization program under Global Strike is the F/A-22 Raptor.

Now I haven't flown the F/A-22, but I certainly do know someone who has and he's going to speak to you next, as a matter of fact, and I know he'll have something to say about the F/A-22. I do, too. It's a marvelous airplane that has gotten into its independent testing phase and is performing remarkably well.

I know, too, that in the President '06 budget the funding for F/A-22 was cut off after the FY08 year. I would just tell you that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, at a meeting that both General Jumper and I attended, agreed that there is no question about the fact that we need the F/A-22. The question revolves around the idea of how many do we really need. That is a subject that will be front and center in our Quadrennial Defense Review.

I know, too, that there are a lot of different figures and numbers that you can hear on the cost of F/A-22. I will just tell you this. In the budgeting exercise that we completed last year, we cut slightly over $10 billion from the F/A-22 line in '09, '10 and '11. For that $10.5 billion we eliminated 100 airplanes. That's about $100 million per airplane, isn't it? So I would just simply say that we need in our QDR to examine the cost and the capability that would come from adding those 100 airplanes back into our FYDP.

Now I do have it on very good authority that the F/A-22's avionics are superior. It maneuvers like a dream. Supercruise is unbelievable stuff. This aircraft will guarantee our air dominance and give our joint forces unparalleled freedom of action. So we're taking them as fast as the factory can turn them out right now and we hope to continue to do so.

The right number of F/A-22 aircraft is one of the subjects that the QDR will address this year. I was extremely pleased to learn that the terms of reference have been modified, and thanks in large part to the efforts of General Jumper, the services will now have a very active role in the review. It's appropriate that we participate meaningfully in shaping the future of our Air Force and the Department of Defense as we take on this difficult Quadrennial Defense Review activity.

But back to Global Strike. We also count on the Predator, a remotely piloted aircraft in this category. Talk about a transformation of how we provide military capability. From mission control in the U.S., it provides persistent ISR, acquires time-sensitive targets and strikes them with Hellfire missiles—the sensor and the shooter on the same platform. Global Strike is evolving, focusing on the effect of striking a target, not the platform that strikes it. General Jumper will have more to say about that in a few moments.

Under nuclear response, we will continue to maintain our part of the strategic triad to deter or respond to nuclear aggression. For example, we're modernizing the Minuteman III missile system by changing out the solid rocket motors and the guidance packages, and we installed the Minuteman Essential Emergency Communications Network, survivable link, at Malmstrom Air Force Base. In addition, we're studying how to evolve new systems to fit into the Department of Defense's new triad, a national portfolio that features nuclear and non-nuclear strike capabilities and active and passive defenses.

Under the C4ISR operational concept, we provide persistent situational awareness and decision-quality information to combatant commanders. Just before a special mission in Iraq, we got a request for critical space support. We used multiple systems to complete time sensitive collections against the target area—a difficult endeavor when you can't break the laws of physics, and gut-wrenching when you need the data for troops going into harm's way. But within hours of the final collection we had passed the last crucial bit of data to the mission planners. They used the characteristics of the target area to plan safe entry and exit routes around significant obstacles and the operation succeeded with no loss of life.

To guarantee the full spectrum of capabilities we use multi-source information from a mix of manned, unmanned and space systems. Some comes from remotely piloted vehicles such as Predator and Global Hawk. Eventually, some will come from near space assets. It's been my privilege for the last three years-plus to concentrate on the space-based portion of our C4ISR architecture, and indeed, all of our space systems. I'm pleased with the progress that we've made in National Security Space to modernize critical launch, navigation, missile warning, weather, communication and surveillance capabilities, but we have more work to do.

In the past few months I had the good fortune to visit space professionals at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Vandenberg Air Force Base to kick off the processing for the last two Titan 4 launch vehicles in our fleet. They're scheduled to launch this year, in April and in June, and I must say it will mark the end of an era. Probably never in the history of the Titan family have two more important launches been on the horizon.

Indeed, another era ended just two weeks ago when the last Atlas 3 placed a National Reconnaissance Office payload on orbit. It was the 75th consecutive successful launch for an Atlas launch vehicle and we have an upgraded Atlas 5 to carry on that tradition, complemented by another EELV, the Delta 4, to ensure our access to space.

National Security Space today provides critical support for warfighting operations. We provide the world's standard for satellite navigation. We warn troops and national leaders of missile launches. The Space-Based Infrared System will provide a transformational leap in that capability.

We carry communications to and from every part of the planet. Transformational satellite communications starting with Wideband Gap Filler that will launch later this year and moving through Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellites on to TSAT (Transformational Satellite), using laser communications, which will extend the global information grid to warfighters with dramatically improved and increased connectivity. We delivered unparalleled ISR capabilities and the restructured Space-Based Radar effort will meet both military and intelligence needs.

As reliant as we are on space capabilities, we must prepare for adversaries to confront us on this high ground, so we're pursuing space superiority based on comprehensive space situational awareness and defensive and offensive counter-space. Those capabilities are being brought online by Air Force Space Command and Air Force Space Command is under the very strong and able leadership of General Lance Lord, from whom you'll hear a little bit later today.

For example, last year our counter-communication system went operational. A selective and reversible capability we will employ when necessary to deny an adversary the use of satellite communications.

An additional capability I'd like to say just a few words about now is agile combat support. Our Airmen—military and civilian—do incredible agile combat support work at our Air Logistics Centers. If it's broken, they fix it. If it's old, they make it like new. If it can be made better, they find a way to do it. They work magic every day but even their magic can't keep sustainment costs from rising.

We desperately need to recapitalize our fleets so we don't keep paying more and more to keep older systems operating. Often agile combat support is hard because our infrastructure is deteriorating. From airfields and hangars to water lines and electrical networks to air traffic control approach and landing systems. Let's talk a few specifics.

The runway at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, was declared a safety hazard during an inspection three years ago. The main runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, is nearly 50 years old and is rapidly deteriorating. In five years we don't expect it to be functional any more. And it's not just runways. The overhead electrical power system at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, is also 50 years old. Overseas bases are hurting, too. The Communications Squadron at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, is scattered across the base in ten separate buildings, including old dilapidated Quonset huts. We can do better for our Airmen.

We're addressing these problems with a strategy to dispose of excess facilities, sustain the needed infrastructure and invest in future modernization. This brings to mind the issue of Base Realignment and Closure. This is the year of BRAC. BRAC's activities have been underway for virtually all of last year with data gathering and analysis and the Air Force has done a great job of thinking ahead and positioning ourselves.

It's important for us to realign our bases and close some in a positive way. General Jumper and I recently went to the first Senior Executive Council meeting and we'll filter through some of the things associated with the BRAC study. Excellent work has been done so far, I do believe. No decisions have been made yet. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld will inform Congress of our final BRAC list on May 16th of this year.

Our third core competency, Integrating Operations, brings everything together for the combatant commander. We don't design, acquire and maintain systems because we're captivated by technology. Fighting the war is what it's all about. We do that best when we integrate our operations with those of our sister services and agencies.

As far as joint operations are concerned, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. Integrating operations begins with integrating systems like the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, which started off primarily as an ISR collection platform but now flies prepared for combat, armed with Hellfire missiles, controlled from the U.S. over satellite communications links as it searches for, identifies and destroys targets. Like our communications networks, it is linked by copper cable, fiber optics and radio frequency waves that enable troops at the front to know part of what their commander knows, and their commander to see part of what they see, and all to get additional input from ISR assets. Our air and space ISR assets collect data that are analyzed and distributed to the Air and Space Operations Center and the joint force headquarters. We build a clear picture of the order of battle, plan the operation, and communicate the plan. We move troops and supplies into position. Special Operations Forces, reconnaissance aircraft and low-flying satellites collect more intelligence to give the joint force commander the best decision quality information. We relay orders and intelligence data throughout the theater as far forward as our links will take them, and then we strike quickly, precisely, and hard. That is integrating operations for warfighting effects.

But integrating operations goes further. It must go further than linking technologies together. It must include integrating tactics, techniques and procedures to produce the greatest battlefield effects; and integrate knowledge, experience and doctrine so the systems get used for maximum effectiveness when applied.

The most innovative concepts and most effective and efficient use of military resources will come by understanding both the unique capabilities the Air Force brings to bear and the capabilities of our sister services. Then we can bring them together in new ways that will produce the effects we need adapted to the level of conflict we're fighting. Airmen, of course, need to be experts in applying air and space power, but this core competency requires that we understand the range of warfighting—air, land, sea, and space—so we can combine our skills under the joint commander.

Our three core competencies work together to develop and maintain our military edge. We're using them to anticipate the battlespace effects required for future joint encounters, plan for the capabilities to deliver those effects, and create a force with those capabilities.

Now, as I said earlier, we face a wide variety of threats from a shifting line-up of adversaries. To defeat those threats we need determination and the ability to adapt to changing world situations and changing technologies.

About 18 months before the Air Force became a separate service, this week in 1946, the world's first computer was dedicated at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC weighed about 30 tons. It took almost 200 kilowatts of power to run. It could add, subtract, multiply, divide, and extract square roots.

Fast forward a brief 32 years. This week in 1978 the very first computer bulletin board went online in Chicago. Now, only 27 years after that fledgling network, we've got a computer dependent global information grid and we're planning to extend it into orbit as soon as we can.

That's just one illustration of the pace of change. But as the world continues to change we'll adapt to the new security environment, to changing numbers and types of adversaries, to new threats. But what won't change is our dedication to defending our great nation.

Ladies and gentlemen, the state of the Air Force is confident and strong and I know it will remain that way.

It's now my privilege to give the floor to a great Airman, Air Force Chief of Staff General John Jumper. I'll be back later, and he and I will take questions together.

Thank you for your warm hospitality, kind attention, and your service to our Air Force and the United States. Thank you.

**********

General John P. Jumper: Thank you very much.

It is a pleasure to be here, and thanks [General Peterson] and [Pat Condon] and the leadership of the Air Force Association, who do such a marvelous job every year at sponsoring this event.

I'd also like to take a moment to share Pete Teets' recognition of our former four-star leadership in this audience and to thank them for having built the world's greatest Air Force that they have turned over to us. Their leadership has been instrumental in the many successes we enjoy around the world today. Thank you all very much. [Applause]

I'd also like to acknowledge Mr. Pete Teets. As was said earlier, he's got a separate closet for all his hats. He is the busiest man in the Pentagon between his job running the NRO and his duties as the Acting Secretary of the Air Force, as the senior contracting official, and on and on and on. He is the busiest guy I know. And he's joined by a very capable group of civilian leaders that we have had in the Air Force that have stayed with us the entire four years of President Bush's first administration. These people have been absolutely superb in their leadership. Their heart is with the Air Force day and night. Mr. Nelson Gibbs said farewell to us at CORONA earlier on this week, and said in all of his experience, this has been a life-changing event for him to be a part of the United States Air Force and to be with the Airmen that he has been able to see out there every day.

So I'd like to just take a second and acknowledge the great leadership we have in our civilian leadership in the United States Air Force. [Applause]

“Confident and strong” are good words that Pete Teets used, and I think that's what we are. I'm going to talk just a little bit about some vectors I think we need to keep in mind for the future, sort of strategic level goals we need to keep in mind to get our Air Force where it needs to be.

It is based on the fundamental fact that air and space will be contested in the future. There are those who think it will not. There are those who think that because Saddam Hussein buried his airplanes in the sand that today the need for air superiority is over and that we don't need necessarily to put any more effort into dominating the skies.

That is wrong. I think that we will look forward to the time that modern day fighters being built today, being delivered today; modern day surface-to-air systems being delivered today, being built today; and challenges to our space connectivity emerge in ways that have to be confronted so that we can do our job as the United States Air Force to command, to dominate the global commons of air and space and cyber.

Everything that we do enables other operations. You can't have sea basing, you can't bring people ashore, and you can't do any of it if you're under the threat of attack from air or your networks are being threatened through space.

So let me go over quickly these eight sorts of strategic goals that I think are necessary for the future. The first one I call ‘agility.’

We've seen in the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the operations we've seen around the world over the last ten years, the need for us to be able to get anywhere we need to go, to get there quickly and to be able to persist there. It’s a growing reality of our United States Air Force. At the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we had more than 36 bases open. Today we still have 14 bases open.

There are those who think that access is going to be a problem in the future, and we point out the fact that when sovereignty issues or national values are threatened, access has rarely been a problem.

Our Air Expeditionary Force … As Pete Teets said, we have 30,000 Airmen deployed today all around the world. We have certainly over 200 sorties a day being flown in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have countless other mobility sorties in the air bridges that are set up around the world, keeping our supplies and our people flowing to various places where the nation needs us to be.

The second strategic goal I want to keep in mind for our future is the goal of operationalizing space. We've talked about this many times before.

I used to talk about space guys much differently than I talk about them today. We used to talk about the guy with the thick glasses that lived in the basement and had no life. I didn't know where he was. I knew he probably belonged to the NRO, he lived somewhere that nobody knew, and he had my picture that I needed as the fighter pilot trying to hit a target. Lance Lord took offense at that. He got eye surgery. [Laughter] He can bench press 300 pounds now, and he gets 100 on his PT test, so he's no longer the guy that has no life. He has a life and he doesn't wear glasses any more.

I remember at the AFA Convention in September we wanted to get a couple of these guys that we used to talk about there because during Operation Iraqi Freedom we'd actually found these space guys and put them and their kit in the Air Operation Center. The difference was unbelievable. They were able to bring space power to bear not only in a collection mode but in the real time targeting mode. We couldn't find any of those guys, not because they were in the basement, but because they were deployed. That is how far we've come as we talk about operationalizing space.

Another thing we did in these past few days in CORONA is to approve a set of space wings. Space wings that will be worn to connote space operators. In order to be in the space business, you will have had to come through an operational space tour to know how we fight with space, to understand the effects of space before you go out in the world and start buying things for space. It's the same way we look at operational skills in the rest of our Air Force. You will earn these wings in a rigorous progression of operational duties that will be recognized by the rest of our Air Force.

We need to be more responsive in space, and I don't mean responsive in the terms of what now takes weeks and months, I mean responsive in hours, maybe days. We talk about joint warfighting space. That means putting the warfighter in the loop, in the real-time loop using space assets, and to talk more about effects than we talk about platforms. I think the journey we're on with operationalizing space, with having space operators, is going to put us in a mode where each and every space professional understands the warfighting effects they're having on the battlefield, in the battlespace, and how the space piece fits.

Responsiveness I hope to be able to gain through our efforts in joint warfighting space. We're working with Lance Lord and others to get concepts where we can launch in a matter of hours or days. We can take mini-sats, micro-sats and small sats, put them up and concentrate over a specific area of the earth; be able to network properly at the machine-to-machine level with National Security Space, but also to be able to take those effects and put them right into the hands of warfighting commanders on the ground and in the air.

We need to protect our assets. Many of the capabilities we describe today and all of the business about network-centric warfare depends on space communications. It must be robust, it must be protected, or all of this business about network-centric networking and reachback is for naught. As Mr. Teets says, we have plans to put things like laser communications and other robust communications capabilities into space and those, as we build them, will have those more robust capabilities.

Then the Air Force needs to take this and present it as a force that is useable by other regional commanders around the world. We see the standup of Strategic Command. We see Lance Lord as the component commander of the Strategic Command, and in the operations center, Air and Space Operations Center that will function for Strategic Command, we will find the functionalities of air, of space, of cyber, information warfare, airborne and all the other aspects that we use, information warfare in ISR presented to the STRATCOM Commander for use around the world.

Next, we need to grow jointness from within. My good friend [retired general] Chuck Link is very articulate on this subject. One of the interesting aspects of the Goldwater/Nichols Act is that it assumes that jointness is external to the services and that somehow someone who is from within a service must be infused with jointness because they're unable to create it on their own. I think that we need to overcome that and we need to be able to demonstrate in all the services that true jointness can really only come from within as we figure out among ourselves how to create effects on the battlefield in multiple ways.

The service chiefs today are discussing a series of Centers of Excellence where we would put together our command and control, our UAV, our Battlefield Airmen, close air support. Centers of Excellence where we develop those concepts and procedures together instead of developing separately and then meeting once a year to fight about which one's the best. This is something that we will continue to work on and I think will enable us to bring true jointness, along with a few other concepts, [including] the concept of interdependencies. We see today the United States Army is abandoning a great deal of its artillery and its air-based defense, depending on joint fires to be available to deal with those aspects of the battlefield.

Next, we need to be able to focus technology directly on solutions and solutions to our most difficult problems. We have for a long time said that our most difficult problem is hitting moving targets in and under the weather. I don't think I've stood before you one year since I've been the Chief and not mentioned the fact that we still need to be able to hit moving targets in and under the weather.

Well, we just demonstrated that, [generals] Dave Deptula and Paul Hester, over in the Pacific. Dave was running the program, and demonstrated the ability to hit moving ships and boats on the water at significant speeds. The capability is there now and we have to be able now to turn that into something that we put out into the field, make reliable, sustain it and continue to make it work.

The fact that we do this rapidly in a demonstration, prove success, and then want to acquire it rapidly and put it in the field is not the way we normally do things, so the system resists it. We find—just like my story that everyone in the room has heard me tell about the Predator—that the minute you turn your back on it they will take the laser designator off the Predator, they will take the Hellfire off the Predator. The system will not want to do anything that's not in the program.

We can do better than that, and all of us have to work together to make sure that we focus this kind of success and this kind of technology on the places that it is needed the most.

The same thing applies to networking. We will get the greatest leverage that we can possibly get by proceeding to network in a machine-to-machine way the platforms we already have. We can talk about the future, we can talk about 2020 and 2025, but in fact in 2020 and 2025, 70-75 percent of what we own today will still be in the inventory. We can talk about grand visions of brand new things, but the biggest leverage we're going to get is to network to things that we own today and doing it in ways that produce the effects that we need.

Another example is the gunship. We have to think of the future of the gunship and the vulnerability of the gunship and what is this going to look like in the future. Does a gunship have to look like a gunship? Or can it look like something else that produces the effect that the gunship produces today? Does it have to be a C-130 that's got heavy artillery poking out the side, or can we find another way to do it?

Electronic warfare. When we talk about electronic warfare, the assumption is that the definition of electronic warfare in the air is the replacement for the E/A-6B. We've talked about this before. When in fact there are other alternatives that would give us persistent electronic warfare and the one that we put forward to be able to help do that is a concept for putting such capability on a B-52 without taking any of the other capability away from the B-52. And then joining that with the other aspects of information operations that might create the same effect without carrying anything on a platform. This is the way to think about focusing technology where it needs to be focused.

We were talking about another one today that I added to my list just, the notion of layered security so that our coalition partners can join with us in our Air and Space Operation Centers during conflicts, during contingency operations. Again, a great deal of effort going on in this direction. It has been going on in this direction for a very long time, and we need to start seeing results on the layered security problem that we have in our Operations Center.

We need to be careful that we don't over-rely on technology. There's a lot of opposition out there to the E-10. As a matter of fact, it's humorous to me to hear the reports I get back that as soon as Jumper is gone, the E-10's going to go away. It's an interesting notion because we are not ready to give up yet on the need for line of sight command and control, the need for line of sight apertures and processors and sensors.

You can't deal with the latencies that you have to deal with in long reachback when you're dealing with sensors that depend on a real-time reading of sensor feedback. And if we didn't need line of sight, then we would just tell the Army or Marine company commander to put his people ashore and he could just command them from back in Washington. In fact, if you were worried about the reachback, the dependability of reachback in your communications relays, then you'd better have a line of sight option so that you have the reliability in hand to get that job done.

So when we talk about putting command and control in the air and being able to read directly what the sensors are telling us in real time, there's a need to do that. We've got to be able to make sure we don't over-rely on technology when technology would not serve us well.

Another principal I think we have to pay a lot of attention to is understanding our industrial vulnerabilities. An interesting exercise is to take the price of the C-130B we paid in 1964 and inflate it to '05 dollars. The price comes out to be about $11.5 million a copy in '05 dollars. Compare it to what we're paying for a C-130J today. The increase is over 500 percent. The capability is certainly better, but it doesn't carry 500 percent more and there's all sorts of reasons why this goes on, but the purchasing power of the defense dollar today is only a fraction of what it has been in the past.

It makes us think about what sort of a national debate we have to have on this. I sat in hearings the other day and listened to a very long debate on shipbuilding. I don't hear the debate about airplane building and the aerospace industry. We need to add that debate because if I count them right I think we have more shipyards in this country than we do factories that produce airplanes. We need to think about that very carefully.

And where we need to go in this business of industrial vulnerabilities and the needs to create new partnerships in industry and how we think about this is the concept of effects-based programming. We've talked about effects-based thinking, effects on the battlefield, but the big step is going to be when we get to effects-based programming, when we can take the effect we're trying to create and we can program and buy around it. When the buying of things that we do is not based on platforms; it is based on what we're trying to do and the effects we're trying to create.

We shift from worrying about platforms and then architecture to get to the point where the architecture is at least as important as the platforms, and when you think about the effect, you put the platforms where you need them to create that effect.

Another example of this goes back to the space strategic goal. It’s the concept of near space. We talked about joint warfighting space, but what goes along with this networking is how well can you lever the orbital space and your flying platforms that fly in the air with something that can hover in about the 100,000 foot regime over a place in the sky; put two or three of those up there to create a network and be able to leverage your very expensive orbital platforms to create an effect like signals intelligence or imagery or GMTI.

It's my best example of bad effects-based thinking. Most of us guys who wear wings, we talk about zero to 65,000 feet, and above 65,000 feet there's not enough molecules to support combustion so we don't talk about it. The space guys don't start talking until 300 kilometers because below that you're not going to put anything in orbit so we just don't talk about it. Here's this no man's land. The problem with it is that the thing that exists there is not very pretty. As a matter of fact, it's ugly. It's looks like a big dirigible, it's full of gas or something and it's hard to get off the ground, it's impossible to get back on the ground, and once you get it up it will stay there for months, but there's nothing very attractive, you're not going to have an air show and attract a big crowd by having the near space air show at your local airbase. [Laughter] But that's where we've got to go. That's where the effect gets the greatest leverage. We're going to head in that direction as we consider this joint warfighting space, this near space idea, and we put this together with an effects-based programming idea that will get us where we need to go in creating the networks that we need to do our job.

Next, as I've mentioned already, we need to leverage what we already have. Seventy percent of what we already have is going to be here 15 or 20 years from now, and the conventional threats don't go away.

It's interesting how we categorize things. The F/A-22 some say is built to dogfight old Soviet-era airplanes. Well, yeah, it does that with one hand tied behind its back, but it also does a whole lot of other things. It gets to anything you want gotten to anywhere on the earth and nobody will know.

So there I was. [Laughter] Sitting on the runway at Tyndall Air Force Base. My wingman is a squadron commander, a bright young lieutenant colonel, BamBam Stapleton's his name. We take off in two F-22s. This is the old guy's third flight in the airplane. I went down there, I had ten days to devote to this. We went about four and a half days of academics and simulators. I said I'll do as much as I can do and no more. We're not going to push it.

The third ride. Take off, go up to the area, accelerate to supercruise. Put the nose down 20 degrees, light the burners, accelerate to 1.3 mach, take that calibrated air speed, it's about 600, hold 600. Pull the nose up 20 degrees, nose high, going through 40,000 feet at 1.76 mach. We come out of burner and go just below 50,000 feet, stabilize at 1.76 mach military power.

On the scope before you is a picture even the old guy can understand. It says you've got a bunch of Eagles down there. You've got an SA-10 over here on the far horizon. The Eagles are trying to see you, but they can't. You see your wing man building his shoot list, you build your own shoot list. They can't see you, they can't see you, they can't see you. Let's let them go. Okay, we'll let them go. Go down, you approach the location of the SA-10 site, as you get close to that, and these particular training versions didn't have all of the air-to-ground software, but the newer versions will have air-to-ground software. As you get closer, you get this envelope that tells you, “get the target in that envelope and let the bomb go.”

You turn around. When you turn around—I think they can see you now, they can see you, they can see you, they can see you. They can't see you any more. By that time the Eagles are still trying to find you. You build your shoot list, shoot all the Eagles, light a Lucky, and go home. [Laughter]

Now, this by some is called “strategic overmatch.” It's too much. You don't need that much. And like Mr. Teets said, I think if we talk about the full array of being able to deal with the hardest things in the air, the hardest things on the ground, being able to win back contested airspace no matter where it exists—and remember, contested airspace isn't just above traditional Soviet-style linear warfare, it's above anything that goes on—urban warfare, terrorist activity, anything in the world where this airspace could be contested that you think you have to get to and you've got to get to it quickly. This is the thing that can do it every time as far as we can see into the future, as well as dealing with the thing that we still have to pay more attention to, and that's the threat of cruise missiles. Cruise missiles can come at you from 360 degrees. They do not obey the laws of Newtonian physics, and we have to start considering this a threat not only to deployed forces, but in the homeland defense context as well.

As Pete Teets says, this is not an argument about the capability, it's about how much of this you need. And as we lay this out in the Quadrennial Defense Review we will make the case for F/A-22s.

We also have to think about this capability in the context of the new Army Concept of operations that are being developed. The United States Army and their brigade combat team concepts, they put forces around the battlespace. When these forces are arrayed around the battlespace, they can do a number of things, but if they're engaged in conflict against any sort of an enemy, the ammunition expenditure, the food and supplies that are needed to keep that maneuver unit going are going to be substantial. Corridors are going to have to be kept open. When they get in trouble, people are going to have to get back to them quickly. With the kind of capability, again, the F/A-22 excels in all of those things.

We need to think about how we deal with unmanned air vehicles. Again, something we've talked about before. In the '06 budget the United States Air Force was able to take the lead in the development of the JUCAS, and as we look forward to how we might do this, one of the options that is before us is to first of all leverage all of the great work that's been done by [inaudible]. To be able to stand together with the United States Navy and get the basic things right. [Inaudible] the avionics, the architecture, the control law, the things that [inaudible]. But perhaps [inaudible] variable depending on what the mission might be; whether it's an ISR mission or a mission with conventional munitions or both.

People ask me all the time, “Do you guys feel your job is threatened?” No. Because the things this is going to do are going to be things you can't do in a conventional airplane. You can't stay airborne in a conventional fighter for 24 or 30 hours. But in order to make this work we're going to have to make it do things that conventional airplanes do like air refuel. We're going to have to make it do things that make it worthwhile to invest all this money in making an unmanned vehicle that can air refuel, it's got to be able to carry a lot of weapons, and it needs to be in direct contact with our Battlefield Airmen on the ground that dials up the kind of weapon that he or she needs to be delivered, hits enter, and watches that weapon be delivered using the organizing principle we like to use called “one time of flight.”

I get a lot of questions about, “Why don't you just stand off with stand-off cruise missiles from a ship or an airplane and shoot those things from hundreds of miles away?” You could do that for a fixed target, but consider the time of flight. Time of flight is measured in hours when you're doing that, versus the thing that is orbiting stealthily overhead that is 35,000 feet in the air with a rule of gravity that says it will drop 1,000 feet per second. You're never more than about 30 or 40 seconds away from having a weapon on the target. The principle of one time of flight is a principle that we need to make sure we keep track of.

So it's leveraging what we have today and being able to make sure that we bring the capabilities in that take best advantage of the things that we can't do with what we have today.

Another example of that, of course, is our mobility forces. What we have today of course is airplanes, airborne all the time. A hundred and fifty countries a day, John Handy's airplanes are out there in those countries every single day. We've watched the C-17 do things in Afghanistan that only special operators did just a few short years ago. Now it's routine. I've flown with the C-17 crews into Afghanistan and into Iraq and watched what they do. It's quite amazing.

As we look at our tanker force, we'll replace eventually a tanker force of more than 500 with something, I don't know, about 350 or 400 tankers. The analysis will tell us what that really is. We'll be able to equip those tankers in ways that allow us to use them as communication nodes in the air. Each one an IP address of some type. Because where are they when you need them the most? They're as close to the front lines as you can possibly get them. They're scattered around the battlespace. If you look at where those orbits were in Iraq, they are all over the battlespace. Take advantage of the position and not just get focused on what they were primarily built for.

The next strategic goal we need to keep in mind is we need to have a human strategy for our United States Air Force. For each 10,000 Airmen we have in uniform it costs us a billion and a half dollars a year. We need to make sure that we have the right people in uniform and no more than what we need to do our job.

We have more than 700,000 people of all types—Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, active duty, civilians—in our Air Force. We need to make sure they are doing the right things. You've heard a little bit about some of the initiatives that are out there that we've got to continue. This notion of the Battlefield Airmen, so that the Airmen that are on the ground with maneuver forces on the ground are the Airmen that thoroughly understand the flow of air power, the effects of weapons, how to get them in a timely fashion, how to work the newest weapons that we've got, and how to pass information to ground battlefield commanders so that they can get their job done.

Our Airmen are all in demand. We have 30,000 people deployed. We have 7,000 Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, about, and 2,000 of those are volunteers. It's a wonderful Air Force we're in. They understand their mission, and when you go to visit them and you look at their skills, it is unbelievable what you see out there. You've heard me say it many times before.

Seventy percent of our Airmen throughout the United States Air Force are engaged every day. That doesn't mean they're deployed, but remember, they're sitting in missile silos, they're John Handy's people that are deployed around the world in the mobility world, they're living forward in areas in the Pacific and in Europe and in other places around the world, engaged, doing the business of combatant commanders day in and day out.

These Airmen live our core values, especially the one that says ‘service before self.’ And the ones who don't we're asking to leave. There are those out there who only want to stay at one place and not move, and when you ask them to relocate for the good of the Air Force, they resist doing so. That is not a part of our core values.

We're asking people to be fit, and the fitness program has taken root throughout our United States Air Force and it's going to get tougher, not easier. We're going to report fitness as a part of the evaluation system. We're going to hold squadron commanders accountable for the fitness of their units. And today we're developing the tools to be able to track that and to do that. The payoff will be huge.

So we continue in our human strategy to develop Airmen that demonstrate the core values of our Air Force day in and day out. Sometimes we have deviations, and in the press you will find people who are talking about the Air Force Academy or this problem or that problem within our Air Force. The issue of sexual assault. The issue of religious tolerance at the Air Force Academy. The reason that they are writing about it is because we are visible out there attacking it and not hiding it. We're taking it on head on. Some choose to depict it other than that, but the fact is the reason it's visible and in the press is because these are problems that we're addressing and not hiding.

When people break the core values, they will pay the price. One acquisition executive highlighted in the news lately is in jail. And those who think at the Air Force Academy you can break the rules or somebody's not going to look, or you can call your relatives, your powerful friends and get you out of it—not going to happen. We will maintain the standards of our United States Air Force, those standards will be high, and we're not going to back away from the glare of reporting that puts it in another light. We're taking it on head-on, it's not going to change. [Applause]

There's an analogy out there in each one of our career fields where we tend to drift back into ruts. I started talking many years ago about the need to integrate. Let me congratulate the industry partners we have arrayed before me here today for the job you've done in creating Centers of Excellence for integration. You've done that. It's enabled us to do some marvelous things in the course of battle and to do them quickly.

If you look at what we've done with things like the Rover, the television set that sits in sort of a laptop sort of a screen that takes streaming video direct from a Predator and from pods that are mounted on aircraft directly into the hands of people on the ground—an enormous leveraging capability. If you look at the quality of some of the pods we're carrying on our aircraft today and the fidelity of them, it's absolutely outstanding. If you look at what went on in the western fight, the integration between our airborne platforms and ISR sensors and the special operators on the ground, the integration is unbelievably good. We've got to stay focused on that. We've got to keep ourselves out of ruts. We've got to remember what it is we're trying to do and we've got to keep focused on the results, on the effects. Get out of our platform-based mentality, not care whether it's manned, whether it's unmanned or in space, whether it's afloat or on the ground. Not be enamored with building the platform and then thinking later about how we're going to get the results of that platform, whatever it is, to the person who needs it the most, making the platform less important than the effect. When we're able to do that we will have arrived at where we need to be and I think the reality of budgets and the like, the need for jointness, is going to dictate that we go there.

Finally, let me just touch one more time on our people. You have all heard me tell the Lackland Air Force Base story. I got requests for it again. I'm not going to tell it again. I've told it way too much. My wife's sitting out here. She'll shoot me if I tell it again. But parents are proud of their kids that graduate from Lackland into our United States Air Force every Friday morning. These kids go over and deploy and I get to see them deployed whenever I visit and it's incredible how dedicated they are. They're dedicated because they know that the people of America believe in what they're doing and they have that support.

When I was down at Tyndall Air Force Base, I was out on the flight line one morning and a young Airman, a young avionics troop, is out there with his dad and his supervisor came over and says, “sir, I've got a young avionics troop here with his dad. He'd like to come say hello to you.” I said, “absolutely.” So the dad and the young Airman come over and I shake their hand and talk to them. Just casual conversation.

Finally, I asked the dad the question I always tell you that I ask the kids when I go to Lackland, “are you proud of yourself?” I asked the dad, “are you proud of him?” The dad breaks down weeping. He said, “you have no idea what this kid was like two years ago. You have no idea.” [Laughter] “You have taught this kid a skill that he will have for the rest of his life. He believes in things that I never thought he'd believe in. He is proud of himself, of his country, he's now a part of the family. All of these things he was never before, and if we weren't here in public I'd give you a hug.” [Laughter]

That's what we produce out there, ladies and gentlemen. In our United States Air Force, the other services as well. Every service, every service chief, would stand up here and tell you the same exact story. I tell you that all the time, too. We take these kids out of a contemporary culture, we show them pride and a little bit of leadership and they do marvelous things for our nation.

This association makes sure that that tradition continues. The leadership you see in the front row here makes sure that the standards remain high. And all of us participate in making sure that the core values of this United States Air Force remain a top priority for all of us.

I thank you all for the privilege of being here. This will be my last Air Force Association presentation here in this uniform in my current capacity. It has been a remarkable privilege to be associated with all of you in the Air Force Association. For the rest of you, you are not rid of me yet. We've still got a lot of things to do. But I do appreciate all the courtesies that you have shown me over the years, and God bless each and every one of you and the United States of America. Thank you very much. [Applause]

Thank you. We'll be happy to take some questions. Mr. Teets will take the hard ones, and I'll take the others. [Laughter]

Secretary Teets: Only if they're above 65,000 feet will I take them. [Laughter]

Q: It was mentioned earlier that we had a little success in moving the terms of reference in the QDR. How confident are you that we'll be able to save the 381 F/A-22s?

General Jumper: We're going to lay the analysis out on the table the way we've laid the analysis out for the F/A-22 before. And it's the Secretary of Defense who's got to make the choice of where the priorities are in the Department of Defense and of course it's the Congress that's got to buy off on those numbers as well.

So we're going to lay the argument out and present the facts, but in the end the choice is not the choice of the United States Air Force. We do have a case to make and we plan to make it.

Q: Are there any placeholders in our budget for upgrading F-15s or F-16s should we stay on this same track?

General Jumper: If the numbers of F/A-22s or any of our systems is dramatically affected, obviously we're going to have to have back-up plans to deal with it. Remember, these cuts were taken sort of at the end of December as part of a budget drill, so there wasn't any opportunity, and that's what the Quadrennial Defense Review will do, is lay in those options and how we deal with them.

Q: USA Today reported the Air Force is trying to reduce ourselves back down to 359,000. Do you see us making that goal? Are we on track manpower-wise?

Secretary Teets: Yes, as a matter of fact we are. There's even some chance that, as the projections look right now, we can undershoot that number. We really cut back severely on recruiting starting last fall, and the effects are showing now. So we will definitely make the end strength and maybe even undershoot it a little bit and have to reenergize. We're going to start real soon now re-recruiting and getting advertising out and so on and so forth.

General Jumper: Let me just add a little bit to that. A lot of people think we are cutting the Air Force by 20,000 people. I want to reiterate, we are not cutting the Air Force. We're getting down to where the law says we're supposed to be because what we were was up to 24,000 more than the law says we're supposed to be due to recruiting and retention successes that we just didn't anticipate and the fact that when we took stop-loss away at the end of the summer, year before last, people stayed at rates greater than we thought.

Q: Chief, you've talked about getting back in the electronic combat business and the B-52 in particular. Where do you see us now with the B-52?

General Jumper: I think we're going to develop a stand-off jamming capability for the B-52. I think it will evolve over time. The initial capability we have will not be all that we want. It will evolve over time to be a very robust capability that I think will serve us well in the stand-off jamming mode. And we'll join with the Navy with their F-18E/F Growler concept to make sure that while they've got the penetrating part of this, which they need for their carrier operations, we can do the stand-off and persistence part with the B-52. Not just the B-52, as I said, but as part of a total system. That will be one piece of it.

Q: We're kind of in a hole it seems on the tanker issue. What are our prospects right now on moving forward in capitalizing the tanker?

General Jumper: Mr. Teets knows everything there is to know about it. [Laughter]

Secretary Teets: We, as you know, have had a difficult time with the whole tanker scenario. At the present time there is ongoing another analysis of alternatives, looking at exactly what are the alternatives that present themselves going forward. That analysis of alternatives is actually being done by OSD and will be complete here within the next month or two, at which point we will formulate a way forward, because tanker recapitalization is a necessary item.

Q: General Jumper, looking at our force structure here and our initiatives in the future Total Force, how do you see the Guard and the Reserve being impacted in that area?

General Jumper: Part of this aspect of our taking advantage of our human resources and investments in human capital in the future, a very big part of that, is how we leverage our Air National Guard, our Air Force Reserve, our active and our civilians together. What we see is that the Air Force is emerging into new mission areas—space, information warfare, command and control, UAVs just to name a few. We want the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve to come along with us on that journey.

We've already seen the great work being done out there in our Guard and Reserve with units stepping forward that say, “yes, we want to make a transition into these future mission areas.” We see units now standing up that provide command and control expertise for our air and space operation centers around the world; we see missions stepping forward that want to get into the Predator business, into the ISR business, into the space business, etc. That's where we're going to continue to evolve; and not only that, but to be a part of our everyday activity on the active duty side. We'll see, as we see already have at Tinker Air Force Base with the so-called blended unit there, an associate relationship of some type between the Richmond Air National Guard and that at Langley Air Force Base. We'll see a city basing concept that we are testing up in Vermont where we can take our young Airmen and get them experienced in maintenance skills and other sorts of skills more rapidly than we're able to do today.

So it's a matter of making sure that as we march into the future we're doing it together and nobody gets left behind in the things that are relevant and the reasons that air and space power are in demand today are not reflected in all of our force structure. That's what we're trying to make sure we accommodate.

Q: We were talking about the tanker, and it's caused some tension over on Capitol Hill, too. Are we making some progress there with our Congress in regards to our nominations and moving forward on the tanker issue?

Secretary Teets: I think it's a very, very high priority that we start to gain some success in breaking free some of these nominations and moving forward in a good way. We're making every effort to do so. I hesitate to project numbers or tell you what the Congress is or isn't going to do, but I can tell you that it's a very high priority item and it's being worked very aggressively.

Q: We have a lot of civilians that are warriors, serving forward as Airmen. Do you see them being assigned to AEFs in the future? They're volunteers right now, I believe. Do you think we might see that?

General Jumper: We have about 600 or 700, I believe, civilians deployed today and have constantly throughout, since the end of major combat operations. So they're already a part of our expeditionary force. Now, it doesn't mean it's not without issues. We have to figure out how they deal with insurance and things like that, how we make sure they're protected and what their status is over there relative to the other combatants, but these are things that are already happening and we have to continue to refine the rules that attend that. But it's already happening.

Q: Is the Air Force still interested in the STOVAL version of the F-35? Do you have an idea about roughly what quantity you'd be looking at for that?

Secretary Teets: F-35 has to play into this whole QDR picture that we talked about earlier. So I will say yes, the Air Force has a definite interest in the STOVAL version of the F-35, and the Air Force is supportive of the F-35 program. However, one of the things that we're going to need to do is look at the entire air dominance, tactical air picture as we look at the QDR to make decisions.

Resources are bounded, there's no question about it. That's why it's important to know what the next incremental F/A-22 is going to cost. It is important to know what the F-35 program looks like as you project its non-recurring costs and schedules, because we do have constrained resources and what we want to do is get the mix right. It will include STOVAL F-35.

Q: General Jumper, the Air Force has a doctrine for integrated base defense. Do you see any initiatives to expand that defensive doctrine out to an integrated theater defense, maybe run from the AOC?

General Jumper: To Air Operation Centers? There are two things. First of all, on the theater side, when you're just talking about base defense, we are doing more and more outside defense today in the integration of our base defenses as we work with the Army, looking more at what we have to do with the air base defense in terms of surface-to-air missiles.

With regard to the global lay-down of Air Operation Centers, that integration is underway now. The goal is to completely integrate our Air Operation Centers around the world to be able to support one another in any sort of an engaged operation. That is part of the joint warfighting headquarters concept that's being worked today.

Q: How are we coming on the next generation bomber?

General Jumper: We have requested an RFI that's been sent out. It's back. That narrows down the options from the intercontinental ballistic missile to hypersonics and the like to give us an idea of what the possibilities are. There are studies underway right now to make a determination on the options that are left.

What is the highest payoff? Is it going to be supercruise? This is where I personally think we're going to be able to take a good look at the benefits of the F/A-22 because I think that for the first next-generation of long-range strike, supercruise is going to be an important factor. And then the question of is it manned or unmanned? Those are things that will go in as we get ready for the '07 POM, to be able to make some decisions, get money going and get ourselves invested in what that next generation of long range strike is.

Q: Secretary Teets, how do you perceive the health of our R&D budget from '06 on out?

Secretary Teets: We have an aggressive R&D budget and I'll just say that AFMC has an outstanding science and technology portfolio that is coming online, and our expenditures in the space world are definitely on the increase and virtually all of the space endeavor is R&D. Some of it does use what are loosely referred to as production funds, but fundamentally space is a research and development kind of an endeavor. Our space budgets are going up and the science and technology budget at AFMC is very, very healthy.

Q: Are we making progress in educating people about what the C-130J is doing today?

Secretary Teets: Yes. I'll tell you, the C-130J is—actually there are a couple of them deployed into the field—they're working great. The C-130J obviously is in a situation right now that demands some attention. In the President's budget, as most of you know, funding for the C-130J has terminated in '06 and beyond. And so we're in the process right now of trying to reevaluate that situation.

I mentioned earlier that this Air Mobility Study is going to be complete in March, and the Joint Staff is doing a look right now at intra-theater mobility which should inform the way ahead for us a little better than it currently has been. So I think in the next month or so we're going to see some review of the C-130J decision.

Q: General Jumper, are we working toward making our policies more effective in working with our coalition partners in the intel area and battle management?

General Jumper: I think we made great strides in the Air Operation Center, not as far as we have to go, but in loosening the rules that allow us to share information inside our command and control networks. There's more that needs to be done. I think that everyone who represents a coalition partner who we've fought with before in the past knows that when we're engaged in warfare the rules loosen enough so that we're able to get information to the people that we need. Our objective is to be able to do this in a way that we can practice it in peacetime because that's the part that we're missing.

This is a very difficult issue. It's one that we're struggling with all the time. Unfortunately, it's sometimes so hard to do that when we do our exercises we just decide not to address it because it's so hard. But I can tell you, you don't have any group of senior officers any more dedicated than this group right here in the front row to making sure that this always stays on the front burner.

We also have a very energetic group of what I call senior mentors, Joe Herd and Gino Sentarelli, and I saw Gino walking around earlier some place out there—there he is right there. These guys don't ever let us forget how important this aspect is.

So we've got a great technology effort going on. We've got people who are dedicated to wrestling this thing to the ground, and it's not just technology, it's also policy, and we're working it on all fronts.

General Peterson: Thank you very much, Secretary Teets, General Jumper, for a great overview of our great Air Force.