Adaptive warfighting--meeting the needs of the 21st century.

Dr James G. Roche, secretary of the Air Force Remarks to the United States of America Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Conference, Washington, D.C., Dec. 4, 2003

On Oct. 7, 2001, less than one month after the deadly terrorist attacks against our nation, President Bush declared in a nationally televised address, "an entire generation of young Americans has gained new understanding of the value of freedom, and it's cost in duty and in sacrifice." With stoic resolve, he said to the nation and the world "the battle is now joined on many fronts "peace and freedom will prevail."

Thirty days after the President announced to the nation that we would be commencing military operations in Afghanistan, coalition and Northern Alliance troops entered Kabul, and 78 days later General Tommy Franks, the former Commander of U.S. Central Command, traveled there for the inauguration of the interim Afghan government.

On March 19, 2003, after warning Saddam Hussein on numerous occasions, the President again called on the armed forces for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Within 21 days, our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and coalition team had effectively broken coherent resistance in Baghdad and collapsed the regime's control. Five days after that, we occupied the last major Iraqi city--Tikrit. In doing so, we replaced a despotic government and, while we face a challenging insurgency that will test our resolve, we liberated 25 million Iraqis in 26 days.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great privilege to be here this morning with the men and women who are responsible for conceptualizing, producing, and sustaining the unmanned systems upon which our armed forces rely to accomplish their important missions. I'm also honored to share the stage today with the distinguished speakers who will offer a variety of perspectives on how we should develop and produce unmanned vehicles for the warfighter. You here today are vital to ensuring we have the best trained, equipped, organized, and motivated military force in the world, and working together, helped make these incredible military achievements possible. So, it is indeed a great honor to have the opportunity to share my thoughts with you this morning.

My good friend Ken Israel has asked me to not only talk with you about unattended vehicles, but to describe our broader view of transformation and how we are adapting the force of yesterday to meet the needs of today, and tomorrow.

We recognize that much work remains to consolidate our military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, the lessons from these campaigns in remote and inhospitable lands halfway around the world validate the incredible capabilities of our armed forces. They demonstrate the maturity of our ability to plan and execute an array of complex, integrated, and simultaneous coalition operations designed to support objectives across the spectrum of conflict, from global strike to humanitarian relief.

The success of these battles in the war on terrorism is a tribute to the outstanding men and women of our armed forces. Without them--and their courage in conflict--none of this would be possible.

In the Air Force, we have much about which General John Jumper and I are very proud:

Our coalition air and space forces blanketed the entire region with an umbrella of air dominance, enabling maritime forces and the ground component to operate without fear of attack from the sky.

The flexibility of airpower and the capability of our global mobility forces adapted to the exigencies of coalition operations--for example: conducting the largest combat airborne insertion of forces since Normandy.

Our airmen demonstrated the precision, flexibility, and speed of air and space power, as well as their humanity and discipline, and their commitment to joint operations. Along with our colleagues, we were dominant in the air and on the ground, consistent with a goal pursued by Arnold, Spaatz, Patton and Bradley, and one General Jumper and I continue to pursue today.

Despite this dominance, the demands of our current national security environment have forced us to ask first-principle questions about the direction we are taking, and how we will organize, train, and equip our forces for the future.

Today's war on terror is unlike any our nation has fought before. Instead of opposing armies, navies and air forces, we face terrorists who move information at the speed of an e-mail, money at the speed of a wire transfer, and people at the speed of a commercial jetliner. As the 21st century unfolds, we may face still different threats and challenges--and wars that could be distinctly different from today's war on terror.

For those of us charged with protecting America, these realities have forced us to redefine our enemies as well as our concepts of defense. As we prepare to fight these new enemies, we recognize the campaigns of the future will involve all elements of our nation's might--economic, diplomatic, information, financial, investigative, and military power. They require us to develop new organizational approaches, technologies, and concepts of operation that will enable us to defeat the caustic ideologies of this century, just as we defeated Nazism, fascism, and communism in the last one. It is these new challenges--challenges that were intensified, but not created by the events of 9/11--that underscore the absolute necessity of transforming our military capabilities.

Understanding Transformation

For those who wish to understand our perspective, I ask you to consider this straightforward characterization:

Transformation is thinking through the challenges of this era, adapting our forces and people to them, and then operating our services as efficiently as possible.

Secretary Rumsfeld has appropriately challenged each of the services to "better prepare our forces to meet the challenges of the 21st century." In the Air Force, we share the Secretary's passion for this endeavor. We must continue to re-balance our armed forces for the future. What we require is a capability mix, consistent with well-thought-through operational concepts and effects-driven methodology. And, arguments for a system of capability without consideration of the joint character of warfare, of the asymmetric nature of warfare, will find themselves in the category of obsolescence and irrelevancy, and rightly make themselves vulnerable to elimination.

In the Air Force, the principal tool we're using to effect this transformation is our demand for concepts of operations for each area of air and space power. My partner, John Jumper, has been our leading advocate for these forward-focused strategies. The CONOPS he's articulated help us analyze the problems we'll be asked to solve for joint force commanders, and identify the capabilities an expeditionary force will need to accomplish its mission. Most important, they define for us the effects we can produce, and create a framework that enables us to shape our portfolio of competencies and capabilities. General Jumper and I have asked all of our airmen to adopt this mindset as we move forward in this journey.

There are several advantages to this approach: It enables us to make smarter decisions about future investment; it helps leadership at all levels to understand the links between systems and employment concepts; and it creates a mechanism to identify our gaps. If a system, program of future investment doesn't explicitly link to a predefined effect, then we'll do one of two things--we'll either make them relevant to the new era by making adjustments to the program, of we won't include them in our future plans. That is why we changed the character as well as the designation of the Raptor to the F/A-22; why we have challenged some of the force structure concepts proposed for Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles; why we characterize a number of "unattended vehicles" as remotely piloted aircraft; and why we are approaching space-based reconnaissance with appropriate caution and diligence.

Modernization is not Transformation

There are some who mistakenly equate modernization with transformation. This is a serious error. New systems can just as easily serve obsolete strategies of operational concepts. If they do, they will be as irrelevant to the realities of the 21st century as the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny was to General Arnold in World War II, or the P-51 Mustang was to General Horner in the Persian Gulf war.

This is not to say that our legacy systems are condemned to irrelevance. More appropriate, the imperatives of this era demand that we modify our legacy systems, as well as the systems currently under development, and ensure that when employed, we use them in ways that are suitable to the strategies we must support and the missions we must perform. Often, we must modify our thinking.

Advances in GPS-aided munitions, low observable technologies, space-based systems, manipulation of information, joint integration and communications, and smart weapons have revolutionized the way in which we conduct war. Many of these programs bridge the gap from the Cold War to the era of asymmetric war, and still fit nicely into our concept of transformational systems.

In this context, this is why it is entirely appropriate for us to suggest that the B-1--as we employ it today--is transformational. Certainly not because it is a new system, but because we are using it in ways never conceived of previously, and gauging our success in terms of battlefield capability. With intercontinental range, duration over a target area measured in hours and the new tactic of stacking aircraft for execution of time sensitive of emerging targets, the ability to carry 24 GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions of 24 Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles--and in the future, 24 JASSM-Extended Range weapons--we have made this aircraft much more than relevant to the new era.

In Operation Enduring Freedom, we demonstrated this notion repeatedly, employing a variety of systems that enabled us to convert "Battlefield Air Operations" from a concept into a reality. A decade ago, we were concerned with the relevance of the B-52. Who would ever have predicted we'd employ B-52s from 39,000 feet in a close air support role? Combining technology such as the Global Positioning System and the Joint Direct Attack Munition with the expert skill of airmen on the ground, using new technology, B-1s and B-52s successfully neutralized and destroyed Taliban forces in Afghanistan, even those in close proximity to friendly forces. We now have to deal with B-52 crews who think they are F-16CJ crews!

This is transformation at its best. It was delivered by professional airmen, fully aware of their new challenges and conditions, and committed to applying the tools of air and space power in new and innovative ways. Our recent adaptation of the B-2 bomber is yet one more example of this approach. While it will present some interesting targeting challenges for the crew, we recently successfully dropped 80 GPS-guided weapons from a single B-2.

In Iraq, we witnessed similar firsts in the employment of air and space power, typically, not delivered by new platforms, but by airmen who understood the environment, the capabilities of their systems, and created innovative ways to employ them against our enemies. I ask you to consider just a few of them:

* This was the first use of Compass Call and the EA-6B Prowler to conduct psychological operations 

* It was the first use of a B-1 bomber using its synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indicator for Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

* The reserve unit of B-52s in Louisiana incorporated the Litening II pod on a B-52 and conducted the first combat laser guided bomb employment from the "Buff;" for the first time, they got to chose their targets!

* It was the first time a Global Hawk was used for strike coordination and reconnaissance--flown as a remotely piloted aircraft--and because of its digital acuity, persistence, and revolutionary capabilities, it proved incredibly valuable in our fight in Western Iraq

* Extensive use of the Predator--flown daily from Nellis!

* Our airmen developed new tactics to find, fix, track, engage, and assess fleeting targets, enabling the coalition to effectively process 156 time sensitive targets, and more than 680 high]y mobile dynamic targets

* We modified our command and control structures in the Combined Air Operations Center to far better integrate space operations

We saw the payoff in our development of contingency response groups when our airmen jumped into combat with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, opening a Northern Front when political considerations blocked the overland route -meeting our Air Commandos who were there already

And, in what some have characterized the turning point in the war, we saw the effect that innovation and imagination can produce during the March 25th sandstorm when Joint STARS and Global Hawk, working together, enabled strike aircraft to virtually destroy and tender combat ineffective an entire division of Republican Guard forces. Yes, X-band radar can see through the sand!

These are examples of how we are approaching adaptation in the Air Force. Ultimately, it is this mindset that we seek to develop among all airmen, whether they are in the business of putting iron on the enemy of supporting those who do.

UAVs--Applying the Mindset

Today, with unmanned vehicles and remotely piloted aircraft, we are applying this mindset in spades. General Tommy Franks' trust was crucial to our progress. He allowed us to experiment with these systems in real operations, helping us learn how to use them in the harsh environments of Afghanistan, and allowing our operators to better develop the capabilities of the systems. As a result, what were previously thought of as the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players," are now very effective in complementing our manned and space systems, and in producing desired effects on the battlefield. In Iraq, these lessons helped us in a variety of engagements, from the elimination of Baghdad Bob's satellite transmission dish to strikes on enemy targets with precision and the prevention of collateral damage.

And while the Predator and Global Hawk often get the headlines, we know there were--and are--a broad range of UAV platforms and capabilities employed by other services in Operation Iraqi Freedom. We have shown that less expensive, limited capability UAVs can leverage the power of network operations to accomplish complex and demanding missions. They have shown promise in a variety of missions, from traditional ISR functions and battle damage assessment, to interdiction under certain circumstances. They offer expanding opportunities for new and unique capabilities, for persistence and digital acuity, and they offer an invaluable advantage--the ability to perform needed missions without putting our warfighters into harm's way.

Just as we have asked the force to look at everything we do in the context of this new era, General Jumper and I believe that we should look at the development of unmanned vehicles and remotely piloted aircraft as a new form of airpower, not as a means of giving us capabilities we already possess, but without the on-board pilots. We need to develop new capabilities that complement the advantages that manned systems bring to the fight, and we need to develop capabilities for UAVs without restricting our ideas to the limitations imposed by manned aircraft systems, such as G-force restrictions and environmental controls designed for humans.

Our future--a Transformed Air and Space Force

While transformation is the focus of today, we recognize that the Air Force has always adapted its strategies, organizations, and technology to the realities of the present and the future. The decade of the 1990s, often referred to as the "post-Cold War era," in retrospect, now looks more like an entire era of transformation. We restructured and reorganized our force to meet a variety of threats versus a single threat, and we developed new ways of delivering capability. Our evolution from Cold War organizational models to the composite wing construct, followed by our introduction of the AEF concept, and our reorganization into the Combat Wing Organization demonstrates how we've engaged in a continuous process of adjusting to a new era of new threats.

Today's force--while capable and flexible, and possessing unmatched speed, range, and precision--is a transition force. Our legacy aircraft and satellite systems were built with specialized roles and for a threat that has long since disappeared. Over the past decade, we've made marvelous advances in fielding a new generation of weapons that have enabled us to shift our focus from the number of airplanes it takes to destroy a single target, to the number of targets we can destroy with a single aircraft. Yet, our aircraft have limited networking, limited all-weather delivery, and limited standoff; and our sensors--whether airborne of spaceborne--are not yet fully integrated.

Our force of the future will be much different. We will employ multi-mission aircraft systems, with multi-spectral, fused sensors and robust, all-weather weapons delivery with increased standoff capability. We'll deploy with reduced logistics tails, and we'll attack with vastly improved range, payload, speed, maneuverability and precision. We'll launch new generations of satellites into orbit with more operationally responsive launch systems. Our vision is one of a fully integrated force of manned, unmanned and space assets that communicate at the machine-to-machine level, and deliver a capability to conduct near-instantaneous global attack against a range of threats and targets.

We are developing a variety of systems that fulfill these objectives: the Multi-mission Command and Control Constellation, the smart tanker, an entire generation of unmanned vehicles, small diameter weapons, and the airborne laser, to name just a few.

It is an exciting time to be in our Air Force. Technology is creating dynamic asymmetric advances in information systems, communications, and weapon systems, enabling us to identify targets, employ forces, and deliver more precise effects faster than ever before. Our airmen are more educated, more motivated, and better trained and equipped than at any time in our past, creating advantages for our service and delivering capability to our nation. And we very consciously will invest in the further education and development of our airmen over time. Finally, we are in the midst of a truly revolutionary adaptation of our organizations, equipment, and operational concepts, making service today as exciting as any time in our history.

We are moving out with this vision of the future, and need the help of every airman--active, Guard, Reserve, and civilian--to stay the course. As we make our way down this exciting path of discovery and development, we cannot lose focus on the most important aspect of our transformational efforts, the heroes who voluntarily go into harm's way for this great nation. The men and women who fight, and moreover, those they are charged with defending, rely on us to get it right. They rightfully demand that we should be prepared to fight--and to win-when our national interests and the values we cherish are threatened. This is the essence of transformation.

Thank you very much. May God bless each of you and may he continue to bless these United States.