AFA Policy Forum

Dr. Rebecca Grant
President, IRIS Independent Research
Air Force Association National Convention
Washington, D.C.
September 17, 2002
Policy Forum: "Transformation­Let's Get Specific"

Transformation of military operations is based largely on what we can do with airpower and space power. The picture behind me in the back shows a carrier task force from about 1944. The carrier task force was considered transformational in its time because it combined technologies, but also because it made possible for the famous annals of the Pacific War to build an entirely different type of strategy. That is what Nimitz did pushing the carrier task forces in toward Japan.

For our time, transformation depends on many things. On the ability to develop new systems and new operational concepts in our many different platforms, which many of you in this room have helped to build and supply.

Today I want to talk about that special process of transformation because as President Bush says, our security requires us to transform the military. Next slide.

Fighter transformation. It is true of the history of air power that some of the top innovations in technology often go into combat on fighters first. And while transformation depends a broad range of systems, there is a particular place for fighters in this transformation. Next slide.

The other key element driving transformation forward has to do information dominance. That picture shows a Serbian tank that was blown up by Allied air forces during Operation Allied Force. It might have been done by the Air Force, it might have been done by the Navy, it might have been done by one of our NATO partners. What the little chart shows is how important flexible information had become by 1999 when that operation occurred. The area in purple shows the number of targets that were ultimately grouped as flex targets, targets that weren't known to the air crews when they launched. That included everything from an A-10 that might have blown up that tank to a B-2 re-targeted en route. Next slide.

Just two short years later, the preliminary data from Operation Enduring Freedom campaign in Afghanistan suggests that 80 percent, or probably more, of the targets in the end will be grouped as flex targets, or targets whose coordinates were not known to the air crews when they launched. That tells us that our airpower now and in the future must be transformed to take full advantage of information dominance. Next slide.

So we know we have a couple of themes. We transform based on improving airpower. Fighters play a role in this. Information dominance plays a role in this. And, what you see here, is a transformation time line, sketched out and built around the major programs that we see coming in. The B-2, perhaps leading us off in the 1990s. The F-18E/F with its improved capabilities. The F-22, UCAVs for the future. And the F-35 now making its way through FTD.

But as the recent Defense Planning Guidance asks us to consider, what we need to discover is, what is the right balance of investment? That is partly about how much money we as a nation can spend on airpower transformation. But it is also about making sure that we spend our dollars and invest in programs so that we get what we want at the end when our transformation end-cycle is complete. Next slide.

The slide that I just showed you is, however, a little bit out dated in one way. It is based on some assumptions that were true perhaps five years ago, at the time of the previous QDR of 1997. And this is how many of us came to think about the future plans for transformation. We knew that threats were largely based on major theater war. The plan for transformation also had to cover inventory reduction, scaling down and bedding down platforms. Platforms themselves were the basis for the plan when we looked at developing an F-22 or an F-35 and the capabilities it would bring to the force. And at the same time we tried to preserve unique service roles and missions so the Navy would have what it needed to bring direct to the war fighter and the Air Force would develop what it required. Next slide.

But September 11, among other things, has shown us that we have some very new priorities and I would contend we need to look at our transformation of airpower through a different matrix, like the one pictured on this slide.

It is really also now about near-term threats. We are in a war on terrorism that has concluded a successful first chapter, but we know that there is more to come. Our threats now are not just about major theater war. Our national security strategy demands that we take care of homeland security as well as expeditionary operations. Instead of looking just at platforms that we buy, we now also consider battle space fusion, combining the systems and the platforms to give information dominance through aerospace platforms in the battle space. Last but not least, that split among service roles and missions is going by the way side as we consider the true needs of joint and coalition operations. Next slide.

What this all tells us is that we've got a great track record on transformation in the Air Force, but there is much that we need to do to transform air dominance for the future. So let's get specific. Next slide.

That DPG question which has hung over much of the Air Staff for much of the summer really says that we must do a couple certain things. Whatever the transformation plan that we devise for the future, we need to do the things listed on the right hand of that chart. We need to have increased survivability for the air component, not only to meet today's battle space threat, but to meet the battle space threat to 2015 and 2020 and beyond. We need to create a shared battle space network so that the digital transfer of data for targeting and for communications enhances our joint military operations. We seem to be getting to that in Allied Force and in Afghanistan. We need to take that to a new level.

At the same time, of course, we need to streamline. We need to pioneer new operational concepts with all our platforms. And we need to attend to this double responsibility of homeland security and expeditionary operations. Those are the things that the transformation of the air component require. Next slide.

I said earlier, let's get specific. The first great step in the next cycle of the Air Force's transformation comes with the arrival of the F-22. It is currently in test; its planned IOC is for December of '05. And the F-22 brings to the air component its first major transition in transformation. I want to touch on a couple of high points as to why the F-22 is so important to this process of transformation.

First is to fight and win the joint campaign. Also, to fulfill some unique roles in homeland security. To help us assure access no matter how difficult or distant the battle space and, finally, to help us build this battle space network that marks the transition.

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