Air Force FIFTY
TWO DAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPOWER SYMPOSIUM
April 23-24, 1997...Las Vegas, Nevada

Secretary Sheila E. Widnall 

Well it's a great delight to be here on this historic occasion. 

Around us in this room we have people who have contributed to every step of our Air Force's growth into the world's leading air and space force. We have people who have played a key role in the gradual transformation of America into an aerospace nation.

And we have with us the air chiefs from nations all around the world, gathered here in Las Vegas to help us celebrate our 50^th anniversary--and to discuss ways to extend the web of cooperation among our forces that has become so central an element of our operations.

It's worth dwelling for a moment on that web of cooperation, because it is so promising and important a development. Over the past four years I have traveled around the world, visiting my counterparts and the Air Force people who have worked so carefully, so professionally, to extend that web. I have spoken with the people who have conducted the exercises with their counterparts--who have sat in classrooms and cockpits with our friends from across the seas.

And I have spoken with the people from so many nations who have worked with us in the coalition operations that we have conducted over the past few years. Everywhere I see repeated that same lesson--of the power of this web of cooperation to multiply the effectiveness of our own forces, and more significantly perhaps, to slowly, quietly, but effectively extend the stability that we all seek, around the world.

Together we are building our capabilities, and we are building a safer world for our children. Each of our forces will build their own capabilities to contribute to the power of these coalition operations. And what I wanted to do for the next few minutes is to discuss the vector that I see the United States Air Force following in the years ahead of us.

That vector is one of change and growth as we look toward the next century. For the Air Force, that's a familiar tale--because we have been an institution in transformation pretty much continually throughout our existence.

Certainly there is an unchanging backdrop. There are some constants:

• Our people's professionalism
• The power that this nation's Air Force has provided to our national leaders
• Our dedication to the core values of integrity, excellence, and service before self that ultimately build the foundation for everything we do.

But I think that as we look back toward our legacy, it's not usually this constant backdrop that comes to mind. Instead we tend to focus on the incredible technical progress that we have made in so short a time. We look back, and it's the images of our aircraft and missiles and satellites that we remember. I'm guilty of that myself. I was captivated while young by the power and beauty of the aircraft that were propelling the Air Force into the jet age--the swept wings, the deltas, all the excitement of exploring a whole new regime of flight.

Those images are strong and they are lasting. They are so powerful: the movement from the propeller to the era of the jet, from the grease board to computers, out of the atmosphere and into space. Truly the progress we have made is overwhelming.

But the most remarkable story, in my mind, is not the Air Force's ability to capture new technology. It is rather the ability to evolve that we have demonstrated so often over our short life--to respond quickly to new strategic requirements and new technological opportunities. In the end, the most impressive story in the development of the Air Force is the story of our people's willingness--even their eagerness--to step up to change and maturation.

That attitude was part of our birthright. It is the proudest inheritance of today's Air Force. It is a wonderful gift that we have received from our foundation, from people like Hap Arnold and Jimmy Doolittle--people comfortable with technology, excited by the power of ideas, people with a vision. That gift has enabled our service to move from its initial focus on strategic bombing, to a balanced theater capability. It has enabled us to embrace the promise of space, and the opportunities for global engagement that are today transforming our world.

Today that attitude is propelling us, surely and rapidly, into a new era: the era of the space and air force of the next century. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, we have matured from the air force of our founding era, to the air and space force of today. We have already built a force in which our space-based capabilities are integral to every operation we conduct. Our space-based systems are the glue that holds our joint team together, that provides the information dominance and the global awareness that we have come to take for granted.

That range of support has gradually become so routine, that it is nearly unnoticed, even among those who absolutely depend on it to accomplish their missions. But there's an easy way to define it. Just look at a fighter sortie, anywhere in the world. When our pilots step to their jets, they rely on intel derived from space--on weather data derived from space. Their command and control will be knit together with space-based comm. They will very likely rely on space-based navigation satellites to get to the target, and to avoid collateral damage in his attack. And in just a few years, that navigation support from our GPS will guide our pilots' ordnance right down to impact.

If you could remove that range of space-based support, this entire complex series of steps would collapse. Our space-based forces are not peripheral, they're not just a frill--they're pumping the blood of information through the body of our combat forces. And that same sort of support is critical to every one of the Air Force's core competencies, everywhere we operate around the globe.

But if you step back for a moment, and view the larger picture, this story gets even more impressive. We are traveling toward the day when our Air Force will become one enormous network of sensors, command centers, and shooters. In fact, we are already well on our way there. Already, for example, we have demonstrated the capability to get a direct downlink from our intelligence satellites on orbit, to the cockpit of one of our fighters--with real-time data on the threats that pilot will face in the target area.

Or you can feed photos from our photo-reconnaissance aircraft into the cockpit of a fighter enroute to the target area, so the pilot can have the latest updates on target positions after he or she gets airborne. That's all incredible--but very shortly, it will be routine.

I got to see another piece of this mosaic during a trip to Bosnia and Italy last spring. I was in Vicenza, at the NATO command center, visiting General Ryan, and observing as he and his staff controlled the very professional coalition operation underway over Bosnia. While I watched, we picked up an unknown surface-to-air missile radar--clearly a threat, and something that we needed to investigate quickly. So on the spot, we diverted a Predator drone over the site to get "eyes on"--using one of the finest attributes of our unmanned vehicles--they may not be perfect, but they are fearless.

Within minutes we were watching the video taken by that Predator. And at that same moment, people at the EUCOM command intel center at Molesworth were watching and assessing that same threat--and getting the information out across NATO. That entire cycle, of detect--assess--respond took minutes--this in a cycle that only a few years ago, would have taken months. So we see here the incredible leveraging effect that these capabilities have, multiplying the effectiveness of every member of the coalition force.

Impressive though they are, these giant steps represent only a precursor to the progress that I expect the Air Force to make over the decades that lie ahead of us. Rapidly, inexorably, we are maturing into a space and air force. It's inevitable--that's where the technological opportunities lead us, that's where we have to go, to execute our responsibilities in the years ahead.

Already we are nearing the ability to find--fix--track--and target from space anything of consequence on the face of the earth. Beyond that, we are working toward the ability to perform those functions in near real-time. We are well along that path. When we get there, the face of warfare will be forever changed. That capability will move us to a new era of warfare, with consequences that we can hardly even project today.

The steps we have taken to date have formed an essential foundation to that new era. They have proven the military utility of space, they have moved our space forces into the mainstream of our operations. But this next step will be still larger than any we have taken before.

We are scoping out the journey along the path toward the space and air force that we will--not might--but will become in the next century. Our vision of that end state is clear. But the pathway toward that end state, of course, is not going to be easy travel. We will face big surprises along the way--in fact, that's about the only really sure thing about the journey. We are stepping up to a fundamental cultural change in our Air Force and one that reaches into every corner of our operations.

To get this right, we must look across the entire range of our activities. This evolution must reach into every aspect of our operations if we are to succeed in any. It won't be easy--but then, if it were easy, anybody could do it.

We are attacking these problems systematically and aggressively. Last month General Fogleman and I approved the Air Force long-range plan that outlined the pathway we must follow in the years ahead, to work all of these issues. We are absolutely committed to following through with this historic effort. The maturation of our space-based capabilities lies at the heart of building the future Air Force.

In the end, though, we can make all the plans we want. Elegant solutions are not hard to find. What has so often failed organizations in the past is not the ability to define a solution--it has instead been the inability to move the people from their well-tested patterns of thought and behavior, to accept new ways of thought, new ways of doing business.

That's why the legacy of change that is part of our heritage is so important to our Air Force. It's not just that it has built a proud history--though it certainly has. To me the deeper significance of this legacy, is that it is the surest guarantee that the Air Force will succeed in this next transformation. We will succeed as we have before, in stepping up to the hard work and the intellectual challenges we must, to create the force that this nation needs.

Let me repeat the point I made as I opened these remarks, on another lesson that we draw from the past. It's that we can't go it alone. At every step of the way that the Air Force has taken in its five decades, our friends and allies were there at our side. That circle has grown dramatically over the past few years. There could be no clearer evidence of that incredible growth, than a quick look around the room today. Former adversaries have met here in friendship, looking toward building new means of cooperation as we build a better, more stable world. Our global engagement has changed the way we view the world, and it has changed the world.

I have seen its incredible effects around the world in my travels--seeing for myself as this fabric of cooperation is carefully woven in region after region.

As the Air Force undertakes our journey into the future, we will travel it with companions, nations seeking the same ends of stability and peace that we do. Certainly as we evolve, and the world evolves, we will face new challenges as we work together. But challenges are there to be met.

Along that journey, too, we will depend as we have in the decades past, on the support of those who understand the potential of the air and space--who appreciate its power--who are drawn by its mystery. Today and throughout this week we have seen the power of that support by the Air Force Association. As I find myself saying so often, for so many reasons--we just couldn't have done it without you. So let me close with thanks once again to John Shaud and Gene Smith and to all the hundreds of people who have made this wonderful event possible--and who have given me the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take part. Thank you.